
Class 

Book_B-S4i 

Copyright N? 

COPYRIGHT DSPOSOl 



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The " " ^ 



Naval Operations 

Of the War between Great Britain 
and the United States 

1812— 18 1 5 



Bv 
Theodore Roosevelt 



Boston : Little, Brown, and Company 
London : Sampson Low, Marston, and Company, Ltd. 

1901 



I 



/ 



Th. 






Naval Operations 

Of the War between Great Britain 
and the United States 

1812— 18 1 5 

By 
Theodore Roosevelt 



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1 > * -* 



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Boston : Little, Brown, and Company 
London : Sampson Low, Marston, and Company, Ltd. 

1901 



Copyright, 1901, 
By Little, Brown, and Company. 



•ill rights reserved. 



JGRESS, 

Two Copies Received 

NOV. 10 1901 

Cor'WIOMT ENTRY 

CLASS cc XXo. no, 
COh 



, i . , 



> . • • . ' 



UNIVERSITY PRESS • JOHN WILSON 
AND SON • CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A. 



p 



NAVAL OPERATIONS OF THE WAR 

BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN AND 

THE UNITED STATES* 

1812 - 1815 
OUTBEEAK OF THE WAR 

/CAUSES of hostility — American unpreparedness — Jefferson's 
^"^ peace policy — Irritation engendered by facilities for naturalisa- 
tion — The Milan and Berlin decrees, and the Orders in Council — 
Hardships brought about by the edicts — Cleveland's experiences — 
Basil Hall's testimony — British seamen in the American marine 

— American seamen pressed by the British — Berkeley's order — 
Affair of the Leopard and the Chesapeake — Jefferson's " commercial 
war" — Napoleon's duplicity — British blockade of the American 
coasts — Affair of the President and the Litde Belt — Declaration of 
war — Indifference of the American people — British over-confidence 

— Efficiency of the United States navy — Ships of the United States 

— Tonnage and armament — Superiority of the American frigate — 
The American personnel — British seamen in the American navy — 
Poorness of British gunnery. 

IT is often difficult to realise that, in a clash 
between two peoples, not only may each side 
deem itself right, but each side may really be 
right from its own standpoint. A healthy and vig- 
orous nation must obey the law of self-preservation. 
When it is engaged in a life-and-death grapple with 
a powerful foe, it cannot too closely scan the damage 
it is incidentally forced to do neutral nations. On 
the other hand, it is just as little to be expected that 

* Being Chapter xli. of The Royal Navy, a History, Vol. VI. 



2 Naval Operations of the War Between 

one of these neutral nations, when wronged, will 
refrain from retaliation merely because the injuries 
are inflicted by the aggressor as a regrettable, but 
necessary, incident of a conflict with some one else. 

This holds true of the bickering war between 
Britain and America which closed the gigantic Na- 
poleonic struggles. During nearly a quarter of a 
century of tremendous warfare, Britain and France 
stood as opposing champions in a struggle which 
dwarfed all previous contests and convulsed the en- 
tire civilised world. As has been seen, every other 
nation of Europe was at one time or another drawn 
into this struggle, and almost every other nation 
sided now with one, and now with the other, of the 
great central pair of combatants. Russia and Spain, 
Austria and Prussia, Holland and Turkey, appeared, 
now as the subservient allies, now as the bitter en- 
emies, of Republican and Imperial France. The 
Island Monarchy alone never wavered, and never 
faltered. In the countless shifting coalitions framed 
against France, there was always one unshifting fig- 
ure, that of Britain. Kaiser and King, Tsar and 
Cortes, might make war, or sue for peace ; but, save 
for one brief truce, the people of Britain never for 
a moment relaxed that deadly strain of hostility 
which at last wore out even Napoleon's giant 
strength. 

It was a life and death struggle; and to win, 
Britain had to spend her gold, her ships, and her 
men like water. Where she was thus lavish of her 



Great Britain and the United States 3 

own wealth and her own blood, it was not to be 
expected that she would pay over-scrupulous heed to 
the exact rights of others, above all if these rights 
were exercised seriously to her own disadvantage. 
While the fight stamped to and fro, the combatants 
were far too busy with one another to care whether 
or not they trampled on outsiders. In the grim, 
relentless, long-drawn warfare, neither side had any 
intention of throwing away a chance by quixotic 
over-regard for the rights of others ; and both sides 
were at times seriously to blame for disregarding 
these rights on occasions when to regard them would 
not have been quixotic at all, but an evidence of 
sound common-sense. 

The scarlet-clad armies of Britain played a great 
part in the closing years of the struggle, and devel- 
oped as their leader the chief of all the generals who 
fought under or against Napoleon. Nevertheless it 
was the Navy of Britain, it was the British sea 
power, which threw the deciding weight into the 
contest. The British Navy destroyed the fleets of 
France and the fleets of the Spanish, Dutch, and 
Danish allies of France, and blockaded the French 
ports, and the ports of all powers that were not 
hostile to the French. In order to man the huge fleets 
with which she kept command of the seas, England 
was forced to try every expedient to gather sailors ; 
and in order to make her blockade effective she had to 
lay a heavy hand on the ships of those neutral powers 
that found their profit in breaking the blockade. 



4 Naval Operations of the War Between 

The United States of America was the only neu- 
tral power which at once both tended to drain the 
British Navy of a certain number of its seamen, and 
at the same time offered in her own seamen a chance 
for that same Navy to make good the loss. More- 
over, it was the one neutral nation which throve 
apace during the years of European warfare by trad- 
ing with the hostile powers. So long as they were 
not too much harassed, the American merchants 
and seamen were greatly benefited by the war in 
Europe. The destruction of the French merchant- 
men by the British warships, and the constant 
harrying of the British merchantmen by the 
French privateers, tended to drive trade into neutral 
bottoms ; and America was the only neutral nation 
prepared to profit greatly by this tendency. She 
made the loss of England her gain. Her merchants 
shipped cargoes to French ports ; and her merchant 
captains, as their trade grew apace, and as they 
became short-handed, welcomed eagerly all British 
seamen, deserters or otherwise, who might take service 
under the American flag in the hope of avoiding the 
press-gang and the extreme severity of British naval 
discipline. 

The Americans were merely exercising their rights ; 
but naturally their attitude exasperated not only 
Britain, but also France. Each of the two main 
combatants was inclined to view with suspicion the 
neutral who made a cold-blooded profit out of the 
sufferings of both. Each took harsh, and often 



Great Britain and the United States 5 

entirely unjustifiable, measures to protect himself. 
Each in his action was guided very naturally by his 
own interests as he saw them. It was Britain with 
which America ultimately came to blows, because 
Britain possessed far greater power of inflicting 
injury; but, according to his capacity, Napoleon 
showed a' much more callous disregard for Amer- 
ican rights. 

The British claimed the right to forbid vessels to 
sail to or from ports which they announced as block- 
aded, and to search neutral ships for contraband 
goods. They also acted upon the doctrine that 
" once a subject, always a subject," and that their 
warships could at any time take British sailors, 
wherever found, on the high seas. The intense vex- 
ation and heavy loss caused by the right of search 
need not be dwelt upon. The impressment of Amer- 
ican seamen was an even more serious business. 
Thousands of British sailor-men were to be found on 
American vessels. Britain reclaimed these at every 
opportunity ; but she did not rest content with this. 
Each British war vessel regarded itself as the judge 
as to whether the members of the crew of a searched 
vessel were British or Americans. If the captain of 
such a war vessel were short-handed, he was certain 
to resolve all doubts in his own favour ; and, conse- 
quently, thousands of impressed Americans served, 
sorely against the grain, in British warships. 

The whole situation was one that could not but 
provoke intense irritation. There was much fraud 



6 Naval Operations of the War Between 



in the naturalisation of British seamen as Ameri- 
cans ; and, on the other hand, there was much brutal 
disregard of the rights of American sailors by British 
warships. The American merchant cared nothing 
for the contestants, save that he wanted to sell his 
goods where he could get the best price ; while the 
British officer was determined that the American 
should not render help to France. From their 
respective standpoints, each nation had much to say 
in its own favour. Consistently with retaining her 
self-respect, America could not submit quietly to the 
injuries she received. On the other hand, Britain 
could not afford, because of any consideration of 
abstract right, to allow any neutral nation to fur- 
nish Napoleon with another weapon. War was 
almost inevitable. 

At the time each people as a whole of course 
firmly believed that its own cause was entirely 
righteous, and that its opponents were without any 
moral justification for their acts ; though the best- 
informed Englishmen, those who managed the 
councils of their country, evidently felt at bottom an 
uneasy sense that their course was not entirely 
justifiable, as was shown by the too tardy repeal of 
the Orders in Council. The difference in feeling 
caused by the difference of point of view was illus- 
trated by the attitudes of the British and Americans 
towards one another in 1812 and 1862 respectively. 
In 1812 the bolder American merchants embarked 
eagerly in the career of running cargoes into the 



Great Britain and the United States 7 

ports of blockaded France, precisely as half a century 
later the British of the stamp of Hobart Pasha 
swarmed forward to command the blockade-runners 
which plied between the British ports and the ports 
of the Southern Confederacy. At the earlier date 
the Americans resisted and the British upheld the 
right of search ; fifty years later it was the American, 
Wilkes, who exercised the right, while the British 
made ready for instant war unless the deed should 
be disavowed. 

It was entirely natural that Great Britain should 
strive in every way possible to minimise the aid 
which America, by the exercise of her rights as a 
neutral, gave to France. It was equally natural 
that the more reckless and overbearing spirits among 
the British naval officers, while carrying out this 
policy, should do deeds that were entirely indefen- 
sible, and which could not but inflame the Americans 
to madness. No American ship was safe from 
confiscation, no American seaman was safe from 
impressment, either on the high seas, or on the 
American coast ; and insult and outrage followed 
one another in monotonous succession. 

The nation which submitted without war to such 
insults erred on the side of tame submission, not of 
undue truculence. But it must be remembered that 
France was all the time, according to her capacity, 
behaving quite as badly as Great Britain. Her sea 
strength had been shattered by Britain, so she could 
not do America anything like as much harm ; but 



8 Naval Operations of the War Between 



no British Minister vied with Napoleon in vicious 
and treacherous disregard of the rights of both friend 
and foe. Nevertheless, France offered the chance of 
making money, and Britain did not. Britain could 
do her own carrying trade, while the carrying trade 
of France was largely in American bottoms. Many 
Americans were delighted to balance against the 
insults and injuries they received from the mighty 
combatants, the profits which flowed into their 
coffers only because the combat did not cease. 

There was but one possible way by which to gain 
and keep the respect of either France or Britain : 
that was by the possession of power, and the readi- 
ness to use it if necessary ; and power in this case 
meant a formidable fighting navy. Had America 
possessed a fleet of twenty ships of the line, her 
sailors could have plied their trade unmolested ; and 
the three years of war, with its loss in blood and 
money, would have been avoided. From the merely 
monetary standpoint such a navy would have been 
the cheapest kind of insurance; and morally its 
advantages would have been incalculable, for every 
American worth the name would have lifted his 
head higher because of its existence. But unfortu- 
nately the nation lacked the wisdom to see this, and 
it chose and re-chose for the Presidency Thomas 
Jefferson, who avowed that his " passion was peace," 
and whose timidity surpassed even his philanthropy. 
Both Britain and America have produced men of 
the " peace at any price " pattern; and in America, 



Great Britain and the United States 9 

in one great crisis, at least, these men cost the nation 
more, in blood and wealth, than the political leaders 
most recklessly indifferent to war have ever cost it. 
There never was a better example of the ultimate 
evil caused by a timid effort to secure peace, through 
the sacrifice of honour and the refusal to make 
preparations for war, than that afforded by the 
American people under the Presidencies of Jefferson 
and Madison. The " infinite capacity of mankind 
to withstand the introduction of knowledge " is also 
shown by the fact that this lesson has not only been 
largely wasted, but has even been misread and mis- 
interpreted. National vanity, and the party spirit 
which resolutely refuses to see crimes committed 
against the nation by party heroes, are partly 
responsible for this. The cultivation of a political 
philosophy which persistently refuses to accept facts 
as they are, and which in America is no dearer to 
the unlettered demagogue than to the educated, 
refined theorist whose knowledge of political affairs 
is evolved in the seclusion of his own parlour, has 
also operated to prevent Americans from learning 
the bitter lessons which should be taught from the 
war of 1812. The wealthy man who cares only for 
mercantile prosperity, and the cultivated man who 
forgets that nothing can atone for the loss of the 
virile fighting virtues, both also forget that, though 
war is an evil, an inglorious or unjustifiable peace is 
a worse evil. As for England, she knows little or 
nothing about the war, and so of course has been 



i o Naval Operations of the War Between 

equally blind to its lessons. In one way, however, 
England does not so much need to be taught these 
lessons, for there are few of her politicians or pub- 
licists of any note who fail to see the necessity of 
her possessing a navy more formidable than any 
other navy on the face of the globe. 

These men had numerous prototypes in the first 
decade of the present century. The Federalists, 
who were crystallised into a party under Washing- 
ton, did have some appreciation of the fact that 
peace is worth nothing unless it comes with sword 
girt on thigh. Accordingly, in 1798 and 1799, 
under the spur of the quasi-war with France and 
the depredations of the Moorish pirates, the Federal- 
ists set out to build a navy. They only made a 
beginning. The people behind them were too igno- 
rant and too short-sighted to permit the building of 
the great ships of the line which could alone decide 
a war; but they did build half a dozen frigates, 
which were the best of their kind in existence. In 
1801, however, the Jeffersonian democrats came 
into power, and all work on the navy stopped forth- 
with. Jefferson hated and dreaded war; and he 
showed the true spirit of the non-military visionary 
in striving to find some patent substitute for war, 
or, if war could not be avoided, then some patent 
substitute for the armies and fleets by which war 
must be fought. Fatuously unable to learn the 
lesson taught by the revolutionary contest, he hoped 
to find in levies of untrained militia a substitute for 



Great Britain and the United States 1 1 

a regular army. As for the navy, he at one time 
actually hoped to supply its place by a preposterous 
system of what may be called horse-gunboats, that 
is, gunboats which could be drawn ashore and 
carried on wheeled vehicles to any point menaced 
by a hostile fleet. Men who get discouraged by the 
attitude of latter-day politicians may draw some 
hope and comfort from the reflection that the nation 
actually lived through the experiment of trying 
Jefferson's ideas. Nevertheless, the trial of this 
same experiment caused bitter loss and mortification. 

At the present day no student of international law 
would justify the attitude of Great Britain in the 
quarrel ; but the international standard was differ- 
ent among nations at the beginning of the nineteenth 
century ; and, moreover, Great Britain was fighting 
for her life, and nice customs curtesy to great crises 
as well as to great kings. 

The United States was still primarily a country of 
dwellers on the sea-coast. The bulk of the popula- 
tion lay along the Atlantic seaboard. There were 
but three states west of the Alleghanies — Kentucky, 
Tennessee, and Ohio ; and all three were still frontier 
commonwealths. From Salem to Savannah the men 
of every seaport city — and as yet there were no 
cities of note which were not seaports — looked upon 
foreign trade as the surest means to wealth and social 
distinction. American shipwrights were already 
famous : readers of that delightful book, < Tom 
Cringle's Log,' will recall at once the way in which 



1 2 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Scott speaks of the swift American schooners ; and 
their full-rigged ships also were among the best of 
their kind on the ocean. Under the stimulus given 
by the European war to their trade the merchants 
embarked more and more eagerly in foreign ventures, 
and ships were turned out of the yards in ever- 
increasing numbers. From Maine to Maryland there 
was a hardy population of sailor-folk, who manned, 
not only the merchantmen, but also the fishing-fleet 
and the whalers that went to the North Atlantic and 
the South Seas. Under the abnormal growth of the 
American merchant marine, however, the growth of 
the sailor population was outstripped, and it became 
impossible to man American ships purely with 
American seamen. Seamen are roving creatures at 
all times, and in every country they shift readily 
from one flag to another. Seafarers from various 
European states, notably from Portugal and the 
Scandinavian countries, found their way in numbers 
aboard the American ships ; but it was the sailors 
of the British Islands who formed the chief resource 
in making up any deficiency in the numbers of the 
native Americans. The needs of Britain's gigantic 
Navy were very great, and every method was re- 
sorted to in order to keep level its quota of men. 
Life on a British warship was hard, and the British 
seamen lived in terror of the press-gang. Read- 
ers of Marryat's novels will remember the large 
part this institution played in the sea life of that 
period. 



Great Britain and the United States i 3 



Wages on board the American ships were high, 
and the service not particularly severe. In con- 
sequence, British seamen entered the American 
merchant marine literally by thousands. The easy 
naturalisation laws of the country were even more 
easily circumvented. There was very little difficulty 
indeed in any British seaman getting naturalisation 
papers as an American. The captains of British 
war vessels were continually meeting in the Ameri- 
can ports scores of British seamen who passed them 
by with insolent defiance, confident in their posses- 
sion of American naturalisation papers. 

Seeing that this occurred at the very time when 
American trading ships were crippling their British 
rivals by their competition, and were furnishing 
supplies to Britain's dreaded and hated rival, the 
anger alike of British Government officials, of 
British merchants, and of British naval officers, can 
be readily understood. It was sufficiently irritating 
to see an American ship carry to a French port 
goods which the British wished to keep out of that 
port, and which, in happier circumstances, might 
have been in a British bottom ; but it was still more 
exasperating to know that this very ship might 
number among her crew a considerable proportion 
of British seamen, at a time when the British fleets 
needed every man they could crimp or press. More- 
over, such a system of neutral trade and of easy 
naturalisation put a premium upon perjury, and the 
British grew to look with suspicion upon every 



14 Naval Operations of the War Between 

statement of an American merchant master, and 
every paper produced by an American merchant 
seaman. 

The French had little in the way of a grievance 
against the Americans. Very few French seamen 
served under the American flag, certainly not enough 
to be of any consequence to the French navy. The 
French trade that was driven into American bottoms 
would otherwise have been extinguished. On the 
other hand, American merchantmen performed a 
real service to France when they entered the French 
ports. There was one point, however, on which 
the American attitude was precisely as exasperating 
to France as to Britain, and for the same reason. As 
regards their dealings with the insurgent negroes of 
Haiti and with the effort to blockade the Haitian 
ports, the French stood toward the Americans just 
as Britain stood toward them in regard to France. 
In each case the American merchants showed, as 
might have been expected, the same desire to send 
their cargoes to the people who wished to pay for 
them, without regard to the rights or wrongs of any 
struggle in which these people might be engaged. 
The Americans sent small fleets of merchantmen to 
carry goods to the negroes in Haiti, who were en- 
gaged in a life and death fight with the French, just 
as they sent far larger fleets of merchantmen to 
carry goods to the French, in their deadly grapple 
with the British ; and the French felt as aggrieved 
in the one case as the British did in the other. 



Great Britain and the United States 15 



But the case of Haiti was exceptional. Speaking 
generally, no harm, and, on the contrary, much 
good, resulted to France from the American neutral 
trade. Nevertheless, Napoleon adopted toward the 
Americans a course quite as brutal as the British 
attitude, and more treacherous. In this he was 
mainly actuated by a desire to force the Americans 
into war with Great Britain ; but he was swayed by 
various and complicated motives from time to time 
— motives which it would be impossible to discuss 
at proper length here. The intentions of the French 
people toward the American Republic, as shown by 
the actions of the French Emperor, were as bad as 
could be. 

The policy of the two nations towards America 
was promulgated in a series of edicts — those of 
Napoleon taking the form of Decrees dated at Milan, 
Berlin, and elsewhere ; and those of the advisers of 
King George appearing as Orders in Council. At 
different times widely different interpretations were 
put upon every decree and order, according to the 
strenuousness of the American protest, and the 
degree of exasperation of Britain or France. Napo- 
leon in particular, whenever it suited him, inter- 
preted his own decrees in a sense directly opposite 
to their palpable purport ; or, if there was a momen- 
tary gain in view, simply denied that he had ever 
issued them. In Britain the followers of Fox were 
supposed to be more friendly to America than the 
followers of Pitt. In theory they were; but in 



1 6 Naval Operations of the War Between 

practice the attitudes of the two parties were not 
materially different. The essential features of the 
Orders in Council were, that they prohibited Ameri- 
can ships from trading with France, unless they 
first cleared from some British port ; and they de- 
clared the coast of most of continental Europe to be 
blockaded, and provided for the seizure of American 
vessels bound thither. They also imposed similar 
restrictions upon the very lucrative trade of America 
with the West Indian Islands. Napoleon's decrees, 
on the other hand, provided that any American 
vessel which touched at a British port, or submitted 
to search by a British cruiser, should be treated as 
hostile, and be confiscated accordingly. Each nation 
asserted its right to claim its own seamen, as a 
matter of course. 

These two series of edicts, if fully carried out, 
meant the absolute annihilation of the American 
merchant marine, so far as foreign commerce was 
concerned, for almost every country in the world 
was engaged on one side or the other in the 
Napoleonic struggles. In point of intent, the action 
of the French was a little the worse; and some of 
Napoleon's seizures of American vessels in European 
ports were marked by a bad faith which made them 
peculiarly repulsive. The attitude of each nation 
amply warranted America in declaring war on both. 
This was the course which was actually proposed in 
Congress, and which should have been followed. 
But it was perhaps too much to expect that the 



Great Britain and the United States 17 



struggling transatlantic republic, which, in point of 
regular navy and army, hardly ranked as a fifth- 
class power, should at the same time throw down 
the glove to the two greatest empires of the world. 
Moreover, the Americans very naturally cared much 
less what the French and British meant to do, than 
what they actually did ; and when it came to doing, 
the British were vastly better fitted than the French 
to carry out their threats. 

French privateers and cruisers occasionally mis- 
handled an American vessel, and both ships and 
cargoes were confiscated when in French ports, 
sometimes even on a large scale ; but it was not for 
the self-interest o* the French to molest overmuch 
the only neutral*, who could bring them the goods 
of which they stood in need ; and there was prac- 
tically no trouble about the French impressing sea- 
men from American ships, because there were very 
few Frenchmen in these ships, and those few could 
not hope to disguise their nationality. The American 
seaman was inclined to look down upon the French, 
but he had not much cause either to fear or hate 
them. 

With the British, all this was different. In the 
first place, the Englishman cordially disliked the 
American, because the American was feeding his 
foes, and was robbing him both of his men and of 
his trade. The fraudulent naturalisation of British 
seamen was carried on openly in most American 
ports ; and the American flag was used to protect, 



1 8 Naval Operations of the War Between 

not merely American skippers engaged in carrying 
goods, which the British said should not be carried, 
to France, but also not a few Frenchmen and 
Spaniards, and a larger number of recreant Britons, 
who wished to share the profits of the business. 
The British ships of war were chronically under- 
manned, and every commander had good reason to 
believe that almost all American merchant vessels 
contained some British seamen to whose service he 
felt he was lawfully entitled. It was an article of 
faith with him, as with his country, that he had a 
right to take these seamen wherever he found them 
on the ocean. As a rule he disliked, and half 
despised, the Americans; 1 he was puzzled and 
angered by the chicanery of fraudulent naturalisa- 
tion papers and the like wherewith they sought to 
baffle him ; and in revenge he took refuge in 
brutality. He was himself the judge as to whether 
or not he was satisfied in regard to the nationality 
of any given seaman ; and he always gave himself 
the benefit of the doubt — even when there was no 

1 Although a feeling of dislike for one another may have ani- 
mated officers and men on both sides, such feeling was by no means 
universal; and there are many examples of warm private friend- 
ships having subsisted before the war between British and Ameri- 
can naval officers, and having been continued after it, even in spite 
of hostile meetings having occurred during the conflict. A notable 
example of this kind of friendship is to be found in the long and 
affectionate intimacy which subsisted between Captain Isaac Hull, 
U. S. N., and Captain James Richard Dacres (2), R.N., an intimacy 
heightened rather than decreased by the conduct of both on the occa- 
sion of the capture of the Guerriere by the Constitution. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 19 

doubt. Not only did he impress British seamen who 
had been fraudulently naturalised as Americans, but 
quite as often he impressed British seamen who had 
been properly naturalised and were American citizens, 
and, even more often, American citizens who were 
such by birth, and not merely by adoption. The 
two peoples could not always with entire certainty 
be told apart; and when the British captain was 
short-handed he did not endeavour to tell them 
apart. Many thousands of British seamen served in 
the American merchant marine; but there were 
several thousand American seamen who had been 
impressed into British ships of war. One of the 
commonest incidents of the time was for an American 
merchantman to be left helpless on the high seas, 
unable to reach her port of destination, because the 
majority of the crew had been taken off by some 
British man-of-war. 

In one of Cooper's sea novels, ' Miles Wallingford,' 
the action of the story centres upon the experience 
of an American merchant captain with a British 
frigate and a French privateer; and, like many 
another good novel, it is as essentially true to life as 
any professed history. When not long from New 
York the ship was overhauled by a British frigate 
and sent into a British port as a prize, on the ground 
that she was sailing for a German port under French 
influence, and that there was some doubt as to the 
cargo papers ; while most of the crew, Americans 
and foreigners alike, were taken aboard the frigate. 



20 Naval Operations of the War Between 

By surprise, the remaining Americans recaptured 
the ship from the British prize crew, only to have 
their ship overhauled anew by a French privateer, 
and again declared to be a prize, upon the ground 
of having been previously captured by the British. 
The Americans once more succeeded in regaining 
possession of the vessel ; but, having only four 
hands with which to work her, she was cast away ; 
so that the voyage ended with the ruin of the owner 
of the ship, and the impressment of her entire 
crew. 

This particular incident only occurred in a novel ; 
but it was of a kind which occurred hundreds of 
times in actual life. It was but rarely that an 
American merchant captain of that day did any 
writing ; yet one out of the very many Salem ship- 
masters has left a record of his ocean trips at the 
end of the last and the beginning of the present 
centuries. 1 He usually owned the ship he navigated, 
and her cargo also ; and he sailed at different times 
to the chief ports of Europe and Asia, and also to 
many a coast where the ports were open roadsteads 
and the inhabitants bloodthirsty savages. He was 
able to hold his own against mutineers, savages, and 
pirates ; but he was twice brought to ruin by 
civilised France and Great Britain. 

In 1807, when trading to the West Indies, after 
having already been repeatedly searched by British 

1 ' Voyages of an American Navigator.' By Richard J. Cleve- 
land, pp. 124, 143. 



Great Britain and the United States 21 

cruisers, he was taken by Rear-Admiral the Hon. 
A. F. I. Cochrane, and his ship was condemned by a 
rascally little court at Tortola, whither he was sent 
because a more respectable court would doubtless 
have released him. The confiscation of his goods 
stripped him to the bone, so that he had to begin 
life over again ; and, in writing of the event in after 
years, he remarked : " Compelled to navigate for the 
support of my family, and deprived in consequence 
of superintending the education of my children, 
worn with anxiety and sick at heart with hope 
deferred, it will be seen that I was for many years 
an exile from all that rendered life dear and desir- 
able ; and this as a consequence of the robbery of 
my hard earned fortune by Admiral Cochrane." 

Two years later he again got a ship, which he 
took to Naples, whither he was enticed, with a 
number of other American merchantmen, by one of 
the treacherous proclamations of Napoleon. Having 
got the ships into his power, Napoleon, acting 
through Murat, had them all seized and confiscated, 
without even the formality of a trial. In comparing 
the two disasters the sufferer commented upon the 
difference between them as being of not much more 
consequence than the distinction between " the act 
of the highwayman who demands your money at the 
muzzle of a pistol, and that of the swindler who 
robs you under the form of law." The marvel is, 
not that such outrages were resented, but that they 
were ever endured. 



22 Naval Operations of the War Between 

No better description of the attitude of the two 
parties, British and American, toward one another 
was ever given than is contained in the writings of 
a most gallant British officer, Captain Basil Hall, 
R.N. In 1831 he published two little volumes of 
* Voyages and Travels,' which contained a chapter 
called 'Blockading a Neutral Port.' In this he 
described what he saw when a midshipman on 
board the fifty-gun ship Leander, while she was 
lying off New York harbour, to carry out the 
instructions of the British Government as to super- 
vising the American trade with France. I quote at 
some length, condensing a little, from his descrip- 
tion because it is the best ever given by a responsible 
authority of what really occurred under the Orders 
in Council ; and it is written with entire good 
temper and truthfulness : — 

" The blockading service at any time is a tedious one ; 
but upon this occasion we contrived to enliven it in a 
manner which, whether legitimate or not, was certainly 
highly exciting, and sometimes rather profitable, to us. 

"With the outward bound vessels we had little to do, 
but with those which came from foreign parts, especially 
from France, then our bitter enemy, we took the liberty — 
the American said the improper liberty. The ships we 
meddled with, so much to the displeasure of the Americans, 
were those which, to outward appearance, belonged to 
citizens of the United States, but on board which we had 
reason, good or bad, to suspect there was cargo owned by 
the enemy. Nothing appears to be so easy as to forge 
a ship's papers or to swear false oaths ; and, accordingly, a 



Great Britain and the United States 23 

great deal of French property was imported into America 
in vessels certainly belonging to the United States, but 
covered, as it was called, by documents implying an 
American or neutral right in it. In the very same way, 
I suppose, much Spanish property was for a long course of 
years imported into South America in English bottoms 
when Spain was at war with her colonies. England in that 
case acted the part of a neutral, and learned in like manner 
for the lucre of gain to trifle with all the obligations of an 
oath. The adroit neutral, by watching his time, can always 
minister to the several necessities of the combatants, some- 
times to one and sometimes to the other, according as the 
payment is good or bad, and in such a manner as to be sure 
of his own profit, reckless at whose cost. At the same time 
he must naturally lay his account with provoking the dis- 
pleasure of the powers at war, who in their turn will, of 
course, do all they possibly can to prevent the neutral from 
lending assistance to their opponents respectively. 

" Conflicting nations accordingly have always claimed, 
and, when they can, will never cease to enforce, this right 
of searching neutral ships in order to discover whether 
or not there be enemies' property on board. 

" Every morning at daybreak during our stay off New 
York we set about arresting the progress of all vessels 
we saw, firing off guns to the right and left, to make every 
ship that was running in heave to, or wait until we had 
leisure to send a boat on board ' to see,' in our lingo, ' what 
she was made of.' I have frequently known a dozen, and 
sometimes a couple of dozen, ships lying a league or two oft 
the port, losing their fair wind, their tide, and, worse than 
all, their market for many hours, sometimes the whole day, 
before our search was completed. I am not now inquiring 
whether all this was right, or whether it was even necessary, 
but simply describing the fact. 



24 Naval Operations of the War Between 

" When any circumstances in the ship's papers looked 
suspicious, the boarding officer brought the master and his 
documents to the Leander, where they were further 
examined by the Captain ; and, if anything more important 
was then elicited by the examination of the parties or their 
papers to justify the idea that the cargo was French and 
not American, as was pretended, the ship was forthwith 
detained. She was then manned with an English crew 
from the ships of war and ordered off to Halifax, to be there 
tried in the Admiralty Court. 

" One can easily conceive how this sort of proceeding, in 
every possible case, must be vexatious to the neutral. If 
the cargo be all the while, bond fide, the property of the 
neutral whose nag it is sailing under, the vexation caused 
by this interruption to the voyage is excessive. In the 
event of restoration or acquittal, the owner's loss, it is said, 
is seldom, if ever, adequately compensated for by the 
awarded damages. 

" We detained, at that period, a good many American 
vessels on the ground of having French or Spanish property 
on board. Three or four, I remember, were restored to 
their owners by the decision of the Admiralty Court'; and 
two of them were forcibly recaptured by the Americans on 
their way to Halifax. On board one of these ships the 
master and the few hands left in her to give evidence at the 
trial rose in the night, overpowered the prize master and 
his crew, nailed down the hatches, and having put the helm 
up, with the wind on land, gained the coast before the scale 
of authority could be turned. 

*' There was another circumstance, connected with our 
proceedings at that time, of still more serious annoyance to 
the Americans, and one requiring in its discussion still 
greater delicacy of handling. I need hardly mention that I 
allude to the impressment of those seamen who were found 



Great Britain and the United States 25 

serving on board American merchant ships, but who were 
known to be English subjects. It seems quite clear that, 
while we can hold it, we will never give up the right of 
search, or the right of impressment. We may, and ought 
certainly to, exercise so disagreeable a power with such 
temper and discretion as not to provoke the enmity of any 
friendly nation. But at the time I speak of, and on board 
our good old ship the Leander, whose name I was grieved, 
but not surprised, to find was still held in detestation three 
or four and twenty years afterwards at New York, I am 
sorry to own we had not much of this discretion in our 
proceedings ; or, rather, we had not enough consideration 
for the feelings of the people we were dealing with. We 
have since learned to respect them more — or, as they prefer 
to express it, they have since taught us to respect them : be 
it either way, it matters not much; and if it please the 
Americans more to say they have instructed us in this 
point of good manners, than to allow that we have come to 
a knowledge of better habits, well and good. 

" To place the full annoyance of these matters in a light 
to be viewed fairly by English people : let us suppose that 
the Americans and French were to go to war, and that 
England for once remained neutral, and that an American 
squadron stationed itself off Liverpool. If the American 
ships were to detain off the port, within a league or so of 
the lighthouse, every British ship coming from France 
or from a French colony ; and if, besides looking over the 
papers of these ships to see whether all was regular, they 
were to open every private letter in the hope of detecting 
some trace of French ownership in the cargo what should 
we say ? If, out of twenty ships, one or two were to be 
completely diverted from their course from time to time, 
and sent off under a prize master to New York for adjudica- 
tion, I wonder how the Liverpool folks would like it ? 



26 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Conceive, for instance, that the American squadron employed 
to blockade the French ships in Liverpool were short- 
handed, but, from being in daily expectation of bringing 
their enemy to action, it had become an object of great 
consequence with them to get their ships manned. And 
suppose, likewise, that it was perfectly notorious to all 
parties that on board every English ship, arriving or sailing 
from the port in question, there were several American 
citizens calling themselves Englishmen, and having in their 
possession ' protections ' or certificates to that effect sworn 
to in regular form, but all known to be false. If the 
American man-of-war, off the English port, were then to 
fire at and stop every ship, and, besides overhauling her 
papers and cargo, were to take out any seamen, to work 
their own guns withal, whom they had reason, or supposed, 
or said they had reason, to consider American citizens, 
or whose country they guessed from dialect or appearance, 
I wish to know with what degree of patience this would be 
submitted to on the Exchange at Liverpool, or anywhere 
else in England. 

" In putting a parallel case to ours off New York, and 
supposing Liverpool to be blockaded by the Americans, 
on the ground of having to watch some French ships, I 
omitted to throw in one item which is necessary to complete 
the parallel. In 1804, when we were blockading the French 
frigates in New York, a casual shot from the Lcandcr hit an 
unfortunate ship's mainboom ; and the broken spar, striking 
the mate, John Peirce by name, killed him instantly. The 
sloop sailed on to New York, where the mangled body, 
raised on a platform, was paraded through the streets in 
order to augment the vehement indignation, already at 
a high pitch, against the English. Now, let us be candid to 
our rivals, and ask whether the Americans would have been 
worthy of our friendship, or even of our hostility, had they 



Great Britain and the United States 27 

tamely submitted to indignities which, if passed upon our- 
selves, would have roused not only Liverpool, but the whole 
country into a towering passion of nationality ? " 

The British Minister, Erskine, laid the situation 
fairly before his Government, writing to them that 
American ill-will was naturally excited by the 
" insulting behaviour " of British captains " in the 
very harbours and w r aters of the United States," 
while the wdiole coast was blockaded as if in time 
of war, and every American ship vigorously searched 
in sight of the shore. 1 

According to the best estimate, some twenty-five 
hundred British seamen were drawm annually into 
the American merchant marine ; and, on the other 
hand, about a thousand seamen, supposed to be 
British, but in large part American, were impressed 
from American merchantmen by British warships 
every year ; while hundreds of these merchantmen 
were seized by British cruisers, not merely on the 
high seas, but within gunshot of the American 
coast. The Americans clamoured in anger, but 
took no effectual steps in retaliation. The seafaring 
people w r ere willing to risk a w r ar ; but the merchants 
were not, for, after all, the neutral trade was very 
remunerative, and, inasmuch as they pocketed the 
profits, they were willing to pocket the accompany- 
ing insults and injuries. Even the outrages on the 
coast met with no more response than the tedious 

1 Adams, iv. 143. 



28 Naval Operations of the War Between 

protests of diplomacy, and an occasional outburst of 
indignation in some town which refused for the 
moment to furnish provisions to a peculiarly 
offensive British frigate. It could hardly be 
deemed very spirited retaliation, this refusal to give 
green vegetables to the men who slew or imprisoned 
American citizens. But finally something occurred 
which really did rouse the whole nation, for the 
British suddenly extended their theory of the right 
of search so as to include, not merely the merchant 
vessels, but the warships of the United States. 

The British ships on the American coast were 
under the command of Vice-Admiral the Hon. 
George Cranfield Berkeley, who was stationed at 
Halifax. Desertions were rife from among these 
ships, and, indeed, were not infrequent from the 
American ships themselves. Naturally, whenever a 
British ship was lying off an American port, the 
American seamen aboard her were eager for a 
chance to get ashore and desert ; and some of the 
British seamen were delighted to follow suit. In 
1807 the Admiral issued an order reciting the fact 
that a certain number of deserters had escaped from 
various British vessels, which he enumerated, and 
directed the captains of the ships under him to 
reclaim these deserters wherever found ; specifically 
ordering them to search even an American man-of- 
war which might be suspected of having them aboard. 
At that time a British squadron, including both two- 
deckers and frigates, lay off Norfolk. When they 



Great Britain and the United States 29 

received the news, the American frigate Chesapeake 
was about to put to sea. She had aboard her one 
of the deserters alluded to, and the 50-gun ship 
Leopard, Captain Salusbury Pryce Humphreys, was 
despatched to overhaul her and reclaim him. 

The Chesapeake rated thirty-eight guns, and on 
this voyage carried forty. She was inferior in 
strength to the Leopard, about in the proportion 
that a 38-gun frigate was inferior to a 44 ; that is, 
the inferiority was not such as to warrant her strik- 
ing without resistance. The Chesapeake was under 
the command of Captain James Barron when she 
put out ; and, of course, neither he nor any one else 
aboard her dreamed that there was the slightest fear 
of attack from the British ships which were lying 
at anchor or cruising in the harbour. The Chesa- 
peake's decks were lumbered up, and none of her 
guns were ready for action, for they were without 
gunlocks, and could only be fired by means of slow 
matches, or of firing-irons previously heated in the 
fire. "When the Leopard approached, Barron still 
felt no suspicion of the errand on which she came, 
and he was dumbfounded when he was informed of 
the purpose to search his ship. It was, of course, 
a proposition to which no naval officer who did not 
wish to be hanged for cowardice or treason could 
submit ; and Barron refused. After a few minutes' 
hesitation, he began to prepare for defence; but, 
long before the preparations were completed, the 
Leopard opened fire. After submitting to three 



30 Naval Operations of the War Between 

broadsides, which killed or wounded twenty-one 
men, the Chesapeake struck. She had been able to 
fire in return but a single gun, which Lieutenant 
William Henry Allen discharged by means of a hot 
coal which he brought in his hands from the galley. 
The British then boarded her, and took out four 
deserters from British ships, three of these deserters 
being Americans, and only one a British subject ; 
and the Chesapeake returned to port in an agony of 
shame and rage. Captain Barron was court- 
martialled, but was acquitted of all charges save 
neglect to utilise fully the short period given him 
by the Leopard in which to make ready for the fight. 
Decatur, however, always considered him more 
blameworthy than was shown by the judgment; 
and in after life the quarrel between the two men 
gave rise to a duel in which Decatur was slain. 

The event was a terrible tragedy ; but one touch 
of comedy was supplied by Admiral Berkeley's letter 
approving the deed. In this he warned Captain 
Humphreys, of the Leopard, not to pay heed to 
American criticism of a feat which was as lawless 
as any deed of piracy ever committed on the high 
seas, because he " must make allowances for the 
heated state of the populace in a country where law, 
and every tie both civil and religious, is treated so 
lightly." ' 

Such an outrage convulsed the whole country for 
the moment, and spurred to action even Jefferson, 

1 Marshall, ' Naval Biography,' ii. 895. 



Great Britain and the United States 31 

the most timid and least warlike of presidents ; but 
Jefferson, even when angry, was utterly unable to 
uphold the honour or dignity of the nation in any 
dispute with a foreign power. Though he led the 
people wrong, it must be remembered that they were 
more than willing to follow his lead; for the 
Americans of that day lacked national feeling, and 
were possessed of a party spirit rendered more than 
usually ignoble because of the fact that the rival 
factions fought under the badges of France and 
England, and considered all American questions 
solely from the standpoint of the foreign nation 
whose interests they happened to champion. The 
President, the Congress, and the people as a whole 
all showed an unworthy dread of the appeal to 
arms. 

Instead of declaring war, Jefferson put in practice 
one of his favourite schemes, that of commercial 
war, as he called it. In other words, he declared an 
embargo on all American shipping, refusing to 
allow any of it to leave American ports, and hoping 
thus so to injure the interests of England and 
France as to force them to refrain from injuring 
America: a futile hope, rightly destined to meet 
with the failure which should attend the efforts of 
men and of nations that lack that most elementary 
and needful of all virtues, the orderly courage of the 
soldier. The temper of Jefferson's mind, and the 
extraordinary military foolishness of the American 
people as a whole, may be gathered from the fact 



32 Naval Operations of the War Between 

that, in preparing for war, all he could suggest was 
that the ships of war should be laid up so as not to 
tempt the enemy to capture them; and that the 
United States should rely upon the worthless militia 
on shore, and the flotillas of equally worthless gun- 
boats along the coast. ! The British Government, 
through Canning, disavowed Berkeley's act and 
recalled him, but accompanied the disavowal with 
requests and demands in connection with the Orders 
in Council which were in themselves almost as great 
insults. Jefferson could not make his embargo work. 
It did some damage to Great Britain and France, 
but by no means enough to force either to yield, 
while it wrought such ruin in America as very 
nearly to bring about a civil war. It was a mean 
and ignoble effort to avoid war ; and it spoke ill for 
its promoters that they should prefer it to the 
manlier course which would have appealed to all 
really brave and generous natures. At the very 
end of his administration Jefferson was forced to 
submit to the repeal of his pet measure, and the 
substitution of a non-intercourse act, which merely 
forbad vessels to sail direct to France or England : 
a measure which, if it accomplished no more good, 
at least did very much less harm. 

The British Government resolutely declined to 
withdraw the Orders in Council, or to abandon the 
impressment of seamen from American ships ; but, 
inasmuch as the measures taken by the American 

1 Adams, iv. 159. 



Great Britain and the United States 33 

government bore equally heavily against France and 
Britain, they ceased to blockade the American ports, 
or to exercise the right of search on the American 
coasts; for they insisted that America must not 
favour France at the expense of Britain, and hope 
to escape retaliation. An interminable diplomatic 
wrangle followed, the British and the French alike 
accusing the Americans of favouring their oppo- 
nents ; and the Americans endeavouring to persuade 
each set of combatants that its conduct was worse 
than that of the other, and should be abandoned. 
Finally, in 1810, Napoleon made in the last and 
worst of his decrees certain changes which the 
Americans thought were equivalent to a repeal. 
Napoleon and his administrators were steeped in 
such seething duplicity, mendacity, and corruption, 
that negotiations with the French at that period 
afforded a peculiarly difficult problem. He allowed 
one set of public officials to issue mandates showing 
that the repeal of the decrees was real, and he per- 
mitted action to be taken in accordance with these 
mandates ; while another set of officers, or even the 
same set on some other occasion, might ignore the 
alleged repeal and enforce the original decrees. 
Just prior to going through the form of a pretended 
repeal, he had enforced a sweeping confiscation of 
American ships by an act of gross treachery, and he 
evaded making restitution for this : while, later, one 
of his squadrons burned American merchant vessels 
at sea. However, on the assumption that the repeal 



34 Naval Operations of the War Between 

of the obnoxious decrees had been declared, the 
American government discontinued the operation of 
the non-intercourse law as against France. There- 
upon the British Government, insisting that the 
decrees had really not been repealed, renewed the 
blockade of the American coast, and there began 
once more the familiar series of outrages ; American 
ships being confiscated, and American sailors im- 
pressed, off the mouth of American harbours, and 
within gunshot of the American shore. Even the 
greed of gain, and the timidity of the doctrinaire 
politicians who believed in a conquest to be achieved 
purely by peace, could not withstand this, and the 
war spirit rose steadily among the American people ; 
although without that accompaniment of forethought, 
and of resolute, intelligent preparation, the lack of 
which tends to make war spirit merely bluster. 

At the time the conduct of the French was in 
intention rather worse than that of the English, and 
the damage which the French inflicted on the prop- 
erty within their clutches was almost as great ; but 
they had made a pretence of repealing the obnoxious 
decrees, whereas Great Britain positively declined 
to repeal the Orders in Council, or to abandon the 
right of impressment. Moreover, what was far more 
important, the French were remote and could not do 
the damage they wished, whereas the British war- 
ships were in sight of the American coast, and their 
actions were the every-day theme of indignant com- 
ment. In such circumstances it was inevitable that 



Great Britain and the United States 35 

the people, smarting under their wrongs, should feel 
inclined to revenge them against the nearer and 
more obvious aggressor ; though this did not excuse 
the American government for the failure to take a 
stand as decided against France as against Great 
Britain. 

In 1811 there occurred another collision between 
armed ships of the two nations. The great frigate, 
President, under the command of Captain John 
Rodgers, encountered the British sloop of war Little 
Belt, under the command of Commander Arthur Batt 
Bingham, not very far from the scene of the Chesa- 
peake's humiliation. The encounter took place at 
night, under a misunderstanding which each alleged 
to be the fault of the other. Shots were exchanged, 
and a regular fight, lasting about a quarter of an hour, 
took place, when the Little Belt, which was not of 
a quarter the force of her antagonist, 1 was of course 
silenced, having thirty-two of her men either killed 
or wounded. Not a man was touched on board the 
President? Each accused the other of having fired 
the first shot and brought on the action. But, taking 
into account the great disparity in force between 
the combatants, and the further fact that Rodgers 
carried a letter of instructions from the Secretary 

1 The Little Belt carried eighteen 32-pr. carronades and two 
9-prs., with a complement of 121 men and boys; the President, a 
" 44-gun " frigate, seems to have mounted thirty-two 24-prs. and 
twenty-four 42-pr. carronades. — W. L. C. 

2 Rodgers's letter, May 23rd, 1811; Secretary Hamilton to Rod- 
gers, June 9th, 1810; Bingham's letter, May 23rd, 1811. 



36 Naval Operations of the War Between 

of the Navy, which, in effect, directed him to err on 
the side of aggressiveness rather than to run any risk 
of a repetition of the Chesapeake affair, it is difficult 
not to come to the conclusion that the President 
was the offender. The incident deeply exasperated 
the British captains along the coast, while it put the 
Americans in high feather. They accepted it as an 
offset to the Chesapeake affair, and no longer dwelt 
much upon the need of redress for the latter. 

All of this really rendered war inevitable; but 
as the American government grew more, the British 
Government grew less, ready to appeal to the sword. 
Finally, in June 1812, Madison sent in his declaration 
of war, the two chief grievances alleged being the right 
of search and the impressment of seamen. Almost 
at the same time, and therefore too late to do any 
good, the British Government repealed the Orders 
in Council : a step which, if taken a year before, 
would not only have prevented war, but very 
possibly would have made America declare war on 
France. 

Deeply to the national discredit, the American 
government and people had made no adequate 
preparation for the conflict into which they plunged. 
The statesmen who had been in control of the ad- 
ministration for the last dozen years, Jefferson and 
his followers, were utterly incompetent to guard the 
national honour when menaced by a foreign Power. 
They were painfully unable to plan or carry out 
proper measures for national defence. The younger 



Great Britain and the United States 37 

democratic-republican leaders, men like Clay and 
Calhoun, were unlike their elders in being willing to 
fight, but they had not the slightest conception what 
war meant, or how to meet the formidable foe to 
whom they had thrown down the glove. Instead of 
keeping quiet and making preparations, they made 
no preparations, and indulged in vainglorious boast- 
ings, Clay asserting that the militia of Kentucky 
alone would conquer Canada ; and Calhoun, that 
the conquest would be made almost without an 
effort. The memory of these boasts must have cost 
bitter mortification to the authors a couple of years 
later. The people as a whole deserved just the 
administrative weakness with which they were 
cursed by their chosen rulers. Had Jefferson and 
the other leaders of popular opinion been wiser and 
firmer men, they could have led the people to make 
better preparations ; but the people themselves did 
not desire wiser or better leadership. The only 
party which had ever acted with dignity in foreign 
affairs, or taken proper measures for the national 
defence and national honour, was the party of the 
Federalists ; and the Federalists had sunk into a 
seditious faction, especially in New England, where 
discontent with the war reached a treasonable pitch 
before it ended. 

Though at the last the British Government had 
seemed reluctant to go into the war, anticipating no 
good from it, no question as to the result crossed 
the mind of any British statesman, soldier, or sailor. 



38 Naval Operations of the War Between 



The Morning Post, the organ of the Government, 
expressed the general feeling when it said in an in- 
spired article that " a war of a very few months, with- 
out creating to " (England) " the expense of a single 
additional ship, would be sufficient to convince ' 
(America) " of her folly by a necessary chastisement 
of her insolence and audacity." 1 Indeed, there was 
one factor which both sides agreed at the outset 
could be neglected, and that was the American navy. 
The British could hardly be said to have considered 
it at all ; and American statesmen so completely 
shared the British belief in British invulnerability at 
sea, that there was a general purpose to lay up the 
American ships in port ; and this course was onLv 
prevented by the striking victories with which the 
navy opened its career. 

The American navy itself did not in the least 
share the feelings of its friends and foes. The offi- 
cers knew that their ships were, on the whole, better 
built and better armed than any foreign ships of 
their classes ; and they had entire confidence in 
their own training and courage, and in the training 
and courage of the men under them. The navy had 
been in existence only fourteen years. It was 
probably fortunate that the service of none of the 
officers extended back to the revolutionary struggle, 
when the American warships were really, for the 
most part, merely ill-disciplined privateers. The 
first experience of the navy, in the struggle with 

1 Morning Post, November 12th, 1807. 



Great Britain and the United States 39 






France, had been honourable. A French frigate and 
corvette were captured in single fight, while the 
West Indian seas were almost cleared of French 
privateers, and no American vessel was lost Then 
came the war with the Barbary States, which lasted 
four years, and was a still better training school ; lor 
though it was mostly a wearisome blockade, yet 
there were bombardments, single ship encounters — 
in which the vessels of the Moorish pirates were 
captured — and desperate cutting-out expeditions, 
in which the Yankee cutlass proved an over-match 
for the Moorish scimitar. It was in that war that 
the commanders who later won distinction against 
the lords of the sea, gained their first experience of 
hard and dangerous fighting, and of commanding 
men in action. They improved the experience thus 
gained by careful training in time of peace. 

In 1812 the American navy regarded itself with 
intelligent and resolute self-confidence. The people 
at large not merely failed to possess this confidence, 
but also showed criminal negligence in refusing to 
build up a navy. The very Congress which declared 
for war actually voted down a bill to increase he 
navy by twelve battleships and twenty frigates. 
The Federalists supported the proposition but the 
great bulk of the dominant party, though clamorous 
for war, yet declined to take the steps which alone 
could have justified their clamour; and in so doing 
they represented only too well the people behind 
them Their conduct was humiliating to the na- 



4o Naval Operations of the War Between 



tional honour : it was a crime, and it left a stain on 
the national character and reputation. Contempt is 
the emotion of all others which a nation should be 
least willing to arouse ; and contempt was aroused 
by the attitude of those Americans who, in 1812 
and before, refused to provide an adequate navy, 
and declined to put the country into shape which 
should render it fit for self-defence. There are 
plenty of philanthropists and politicians in the 
America of to-day who show the same timid, short- 
sighted folly, and supine indifference to national hon- 
our; nor is the breed wholly lacking in England. 

In 1812 the navy of the United States, exclusive 
of two or three condemned hulks and a score or so 
of worthless gunboats, consisted of the following 
vessels : — 



Ratb. 

(GUN9.) 



44 

44 

44 

38 

38 

38 

32 

28 

18 

18 

16 

16 

14 

14 

12 

12 



Name. 



United States 
Constitution . 
President 
Constellation 
Congress . . 
Chesapeake . 
Essex 

Adams . . 
Hornet 
Wasp . . 
Argus . . 
Syren . . . 
Nautilus . . 
Vixen . . . 
Enterprise . 
Viper . . . 



Class. 



Frigate 



Corvette 
Ship-sloop 

» 
Brig-sloop 



Brig 



Date op 
Building. 



1797 

1797 

1800 

1797 

1799 

1799 

1799 

1799 

1805 

1806 

1803 

1803 

1803 

1803 

1799 

1810 



Tonnage. 



1576 

1576 

1576 

1265 

1268 

1244 

860 

560 

480 

450 

298 

250 

185 

185 

165 

148 



Great Britain and the United States 41 



Tonnage was at that time reckoned arbitrarily in 
several different ways. One of the tricks of naval 
writers of the period, on both sides, was to compute 
the tonnage differently for friendly and foreign 
ships, thus making out the most gratifying disparity 
in size, for the benefit of the national vanity. 1 

The four smallest brigs were worthless craft orig- 
inally altered from schooners. The other twelve 
vessels were among the best of their respective 
classes afloat. At that time there were two kinds 
of guns in use in all navies : the long gun and the 
carronade. The carronade was short and light, but 
of large calibre. At long ranges it was useless ; at 
short ranges, owing to the greater weight of the 
shot, it was much more useful than a long gun of 
less calibre. American sloops and brigs were armed 
only with carronades, save for two longbow-chasers; 
frigates were armed with long guns on the main- 
deck, and with carronades and two long bow-chasers 
on the quarter-deck and forecastle, or what the 

1 The British method of computing tonnage being different from 
the American, and even the methods of measurement being differ- 
ent it is not possible to make an absolutely accurate comparison of 
the' tonnage of the combatants. According to the British methods, 
the American frigates would measure from 100 to 150 tons less than 
the fi-ures given above. I have discussed the matter fully in the 
appendix to mv 'Naval War of 1812.' James, the British histo- 
rian, is one of the writers who, especially in dealing with the lake 
flotillas, adopts different standards for the two sides ; and his latest 
editor has attempted to justify him, by ignoring the fact that the 
question is, not as to the accuracy of James's figures by any one 
standard, but as to his using two different standards as if they were 
the same. 



42 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Americans called the spar-deck. The only excep- 
tion to this rule was the Essex, which was armed 
with forty 32-pr. carronades and six Ion* 12's In 
comparing the relative force of any pair of com- 
batants, the most important item is the relative 
weight of metal in broadside; but, in considering 
this, allowance must always be made for the differ- 
ence between carronades and long guns, the latter 
being, relatively to their calibre, much more powerful 
and efficient weapons. The annalist of each side 
usually omits all considerations of this kind when 
they tell against their own people. 

The only other class of ocean vessels used by the 
Americans during the war may as well be alluded 
to here. It consisted of a class of fine ship-sloops, 
ol 509 tons, each carrying twenty-two guns, which 
put to sea m 1814. 

Almost all the American ships carried more guns 
than they rated. The 44-gun frigate usually carried 
nfty-iour, consisting of thirty long 24's on the 
mam-deck, and on the spar-deck two long bow- 
chasers, and either twenty or twenty-two carronades 
--oJ-pounders in the Constitution, and 42-pounders 
m the President and the United States. The Con- 
stellation, Congress, and Chesapeake carried forty-eight 
guns, twenty-eight long 18's on the main-deck, and 
on the spar-deck two long 18's, and eighteen 32-pr 
carronades. The ship-sloops carried 32-pr. carron- 
ades, and long 1 2's for bow-chasers. The brig-sloops 
carried 24 or 18-pr. carronades, according to their size 



i 



Great Britain and the United States 43 



The British vessels with which the American 
ships most frequently came in contact were the 38- 
gun frigates and the 18-gun brig-sloops. The 38- 
gun frigates were almost exactly similar in size and 
armament to the American ships of the same rate. 
The brig-sloops were somewhat less in size than the 
Hornet ; they were supposed to carry eighteen guns, 
two bow-chasers and sixteen 32-pound carronades. 

The system of rating, like the system of measur- 
ing tonnage, was thus purely artificial. The worst 
case of underrating in the American navy was that 
of the Essex, which rated thirty-two and carried 
forty-six guns, so that her real, was 44 per cent, in 
excess of her nominal force. Among the British 
ships with which the Americans came in contact, 
the worst case of underrating was the Cyane, which 
was rated at twenty-two and carried thirty-three 
guns, making a difference of 50 per cent. The 
Wasp carried eighteen guns, the Hornet twenty. 
The English brig-sloops almost always carried one 
light carronade beyond their rating, and sometimes, 
in addition, a light stem-chaser, or two bow-chasers, 
thrust into the bridle ports. 

The conflicts which at the time and afterwards 
attracted most attention were the first three frigate 
fights, all of which took place between the Ameri- 
can 44's and the British 38's. In each case the 
American ship was markedly superior in force. 
The countrymen of each combatant tried, on the 
one side, to enhance the glory of the victory by 



44 Naval Operations of the War Between 

minimising this difference in force, and, on the 
other, to explain away the defeat by exaggerating 
it. The Americans asserted, not merely in their 
histories, but even by resolutions in Congress, that 
the ships were practically equal in force, which a 
glance at the figures given above will show to be an 
absurd untruth. The British, on the other hand, 
sought consolation in declaring that the American 
frigates were " disguised line-of -battle ships. ' : This 
has been solemnly repeated at intervals to the pres- 
ent day. It is of course pure nonsense. The Amer- 
ican 44 's were the finest frigates afloat ; but there 
had already been 24-pounder frigates, not only in 
the British, but also in the French and Danish 
navies. One of the British frigates with which the 
Americans came in contact was the 40-gun frigate 
Endymion. The Endymion, like the Constitution, 
carried long 24's on her main-deck, and 32-pound 
carronades on her spar-deck. In 1815 she had fifty- 
one guns, including a shifting 24-pound carronade, 
making a broadside of 698 pounds. The Constitu- 
tion that year carried fifty-two guns, and threw a 
broadside of 704 pounds. The difference in weight 
of metal was therefore just six pounds, or one per 
cent., which is certainly not enough to mark the 
difference between a 40-gun frigate and a " dis- 
guised line-of-battle ship." As a matter of fact, 
the difference between the force and the rating was 
greater in the case of the Endymion than in that of 
the Constitution. 



Great Britain and the United States 45 

The United States was not the first nation that 
invented the heavy frigate, but was the first to use 
it effectively. The French 24-pounder carried a ball 
about five pounds heavier than that of the Ameri- 
can 24, and the 36-pound carronade which the 
French put on their spar-decks carried a heavier 
ball than the American or British 42-pounder ; for 
the French pound was about 15 per cent, heavier 
than the English. Nevertheless the French, as well 
as the Dutch and Danish, heavy 24-pounder frigates 
had failed to distinguish themselves, and had been 
captured by the British just as easily as the 18- 
pounder frigates. In consequence, the belief was gen- 
eral that the 18-pounder frigates were really better 
as fighting machines than those with 24-pounders. 
The American successes upset this theory, because 
the Americans built heavy frigates which were even 
better than those built by the French and Dutch, 
and put into them officers and seamen who were 
able to handle and fight them as no frigates at that 
time were handled or fought by any other nation. 

The size and seaworthy qualities, and the excel- 
lent armament of the American vessels did the 
utmost credit, both to those who had planned them, 
and to those who had built them. There was one 
point in which there was a falling off as compared 
with the British. The American foundries were 
not very good, and in consequence the guns were 
more liable to accidents; and almost all the shot 
were of light weight, the shortage varying from two 



46 Naval Operations of the War Between 

or three to as much as ten per cent. As a result, 
the real weight of the American broadside was al- 
ways somewhat less than nominal. 

The personnel of the American navy consisted of 
500 officers, but twelve of whom were captains, and 
5230 seamen and boys, of whom 2346 were destined 
for the cruising war vessels, the remainder being 
for service at the forts and navy yards, in the gun- 
boats, and on the lakes. The officers were almost 
exclusively native Americans. In the crews, native 
Americans also overwhelmingly predominated ; there 
were, however, a certain number of foreigners aboard 
almost every vessel, the proportion of English being 
probably larger than that of any other nationality, 
in spite of the fact that Great Britain was the coun- 
try with which the Americans were at war. This 
proportion of foreigners, and especially of English- 
men, varied in the different ships. The captains, 
under instructions from the Secretary of the Navy, 
got rid of as many English as possible at the out- 
break of the war, fearing lest they might be reluctant 
to fight against their countrymen. A good many 
remained, possibly as many as ten or even fifteen 
per cent, of the total in some of the ships, but 
certainly a smaller percentage on the average. 

The British Navy was so large as to put all com- 
parison between it and that of the United States out 
of the question. But the British Navy could not be 
diverted from the use to which it had so long been 
put. It was a knife at the throat of Napoleon, and 



Great Britain and the United States 47 

it could not be taken away. However, this applied 
only to the great fleets, and there was no need of great 
fleets for use against America. A few two-deckers, 
and a score or two of frigates would, it was believed, 
suffice to keep in check the entire American navy, 
and to blockade all the important American ports. 

The British Navy stood at the height of its splen- 
dour and triumph, and higher than any other navy 
either before or since. During twenty years of 
almost uninterrupted warfare it had cowed or 
destroyed the navies of all other European powers. 
In fleet action after fleet action it had crushed to 
atoms the sea might of France, of Spain, of Holland, 
and of Denmark ; in hundreds of single ship fights, 
in which the forces engaged on each side were fairly 
equal, the monotonous record of Britain's triumphs 
had been broken by less than half-a-dozen defeats. 
The British officers felt absolute confidence in their 
prowess, and they despised their new foes. As a 
whole they had begun to pay less attention to 
gunnery since Nelson's death ; and this lack of care 
and their overwhelming pride and self-confidence 
— good qualities, but bad if carried to excess — 
made them less fit than formerly to contend on 
equal terms for the mastery of the ocean with 
enemies more skilful than any they had yet encoun- 
tered. Their European antagonists had been com- 
pletely cowed, and always entered into a fight half 
beaten in advance ; but in the Americans they had 
to meet men of a different mettle. 



THE EARLY AMERICAN VICTORIES 

HPHE President and the Belvidera — The Essex and the Alert — 
The Constitution and the Guerriere — The Wasp and the Frolic 
— The United States and the Macedonian — The Constitution and the 
Java — The Hornet and the Peacock — American privateers — Ef- 
fects of commerce-destroying — British discouragement — Admiralty 
precautions — Jurien de La Graviere on the war. 

IN June, 1812, there were half-a-dozen British 
frigates, and one old two-decker, the Africa, 
64, 1 immediately off the American coast. Had 
the American ships been ready they could doubtless 
have overcome these, even when collected into a 
squadron, as they were as soon as the news of the 
outbreak of the war became known. Such a victory 
over a squadron would have been an incalculable 
benefit to the Americans ; but the administration 
had no thought of such action. It wished to lay 
up the American frigates in port, and was only pre- 
vented from doing so by the urgent remonstrances 
of two of the naval captains. The Secretary of the 
Navy wrote letters to Captain Isaac Hull urging 
him to act, even against a single foe, with timid 
caution ; but Hull, fortunately, was willing to bear 

1 The Africa, built in 1781, was, in 1812, flagship of Vice-Admiral 
Herbert Sawyer (2), who, since 1810, had been Commander-in- 
Chief on the Halifax station W. L. C. 



Naval Operations 49 

the responsibility which his superior shirked. 1 How- 
ever, even a bold administration could have done 
little at the moment. The ships were not ready, 
and all that could be done was to send Captain John 
Rodgers on a cruise with his own frigate, the Pres- 
ident, 44, the United States, 44, Captain Stephen 
Decatur, the Congress, 38, Captain John Smith, the 
Hornet, 18, Captain James Lawrence, and the Argus, 
16, Captain Arthur Sinclair. Rodgers put to sea 
on June 21st, hoping to strike the West Indies' 
homeward-bound fleet. 2 Two days out of the port 
he encountered the British frigate Belvidcra, 36, 
Captain Richard Byron (2). 3 Byron had been in- 
formed of the likelihood of war by a New York 
pilot boat ; and as soon as he made out the strange 
ships he stood away before the wind. The Ameri- 
cans made all sail in chase, the President, a very 
fast ship off the wind, leading, and the Congress 
coming next. 

At noon the President was within less than three 
miles of the Belvidera, steering N.E. by E. As the 
President kept gaining, Byron cleared for action, 
and shifted to the stern ports two long 18's on the 
main-deck and two 32-pound carronades on the 
quarter-deck. At 4.30 4 Commodore Rodgers him- 
self fired the President's starboard forecastle bow- 

1 Ingersoll's • Second War between the United States and Great 
Britain,' i. 377, 381. 

2 Captain John Rodgers to the Secretary of the Navy, Sept. 1st, 
1812. 

8 Brenton, v. 46. 4 Cooper, ii. 151. 

4 



50 Naval Operations of the War Between 

chaser ; the corresponding main-deck gun was next 
discharged ; and then Rodgers fired his gun again. 
All three shots struck the stern of the Belvidera, 
killing and wounding nine men ; but when the 
President's main-deck gun was discharged for the 
second time it burst, blowing up the forecastle deck 
and killing and wounding sixteen men, among them 
the Commodore himself, whose leg was broken. 
Nothing causes more panic than such an explosion, 
for every gun is at once distrusted ; and in the 
midst of the confusion Byron opened his stern- 
chaser, and killed or wounded six men more. Had 
the President pushed steadily on, using only her 
bow-chasers until she closed, she would probably 
have run abreast of the Belvidera, which could not 
then have successfully withstood her; but, instead 
of doing this, she bore up and fired her port broad- 
side, doing little damage ; and this manoeuvre she 
repeated again and again ; while the Belvidera kept 
up a brisk and galling fire with her stern-chasers, 
and her active seamen repaired the damage done by 
the President's guns as fast as it occurred. 1 Byron 
cut away his anchors, the barge, yawl, gig, and jolly- 
boat, and started fourteen tons of water, gradually 
shifting his course, and beginning to draw ahead, 
and the President, which had lost much ground by 
yawing to deliver her broadsides, could not regain 
it. 2 The upshot of it was that Captain Byron 

1 James, vi. 119. 

2 Sir Howard Douglas, 'Naval Gunnery,' 419 (3rd edition). 



Great Britain and the United States 51 



escaped and got safely into Halifax on June 27th, 
having shown himself to be a skilful seaman and 
resolute commander. 1 Subsequently, when engaged 
in the blockade of the Chesapeake, he proved him- 
self to be as humane and generous to non-combat- 
ants as he was formidable to armed foes. 

Rodgers's squadron continued its cruise, but re- 
turned home two months later without accomplish- 
ing anything save the capture of a few merchantmen. 
When Byron brought the news of the war to Hali- 
fax, a squadron of ships 2 was immediately despatched 
to cruise against the United States, under the com- 
mand of Captain Philip Bowes Vere Broke, of the 
Shannon. Meanwhile the Essex, 32, had to put to 
sea under Captain David Porter, after he had in 
vain implored the Navy Department to allow him 
to change her maindeck carronades for long guns. 
She cut out a transport with a couple of hundred 
soldiers from a convoy of troopships bound to 
Quebec, under the protection of the British frigate 
Minerva, 32, Captain Richard Hawkins; and she 
captured the British ship-sloop Alert, 16, 3 Com- 

1 In this affair, Lieutenants John Sykes (2), William Henry 
Bruce (2), who was wounded, and the Hon. George Pryse Campbell, 
and the Master, Mr. James Kerr, of the Relvidera, specially distin- 
guished themselves. (Byron's Disp.) — W. L. C. 

2 Africa, 64, Shannon, 38, Belvidera, 36, and JEolus, 32, subse- 
quently reinforced by the Guerriere, 38. The scpiadron left Halifax 
on July 5th. —W. L. C. 

8 The Alert was one of twelve colliers which had been purchased 
into the Navy in 1804, and fitted with 18-pr. carronades. In 1812 
two only of these craft, the Alert and the Avenger, remained on the 



52 Naval Operations of the War Between 



mander Thomas Lamb Polden Laugharne, after an 
exchange of broadsides, made prize of eight mer- 
chantmen, and then returned to New York. 1 

On July 12th another ship, destined to become 
one of the most famous in the American navy, put 
out of the Chesapeake. This was the 44-gun frigate 
Constitution, affectionately known as " Old Ironsides." 
She was commanded by Captain Isaac Hull, than 
whom there was no better single ship commander 
in the service. Her crew was almost entirely new, 
drafts of men coming on board up to the last 
moment; but they were of excellent stuff, being 
almost all native Americans, cool, handy, intelligent, 
and eager to learn their duties. Under the care of 
the experienced officers and under-officers they were 
got into shape as men-of-war's men without the 
slightest trouble. Just before starting, Hull wrote 
to the Secretary of the Navy : " The crew are as 
yet unacquainted with a ship of war, as many have 
but lately joined, and have never been on an armed 
ship before. ... We are doing all we can to make 
them acquainted with their duties, and in a few 
days we shall have nothing to fear from any single- 
decked ship." 2 

list. In the brief action the Alert had three men wounded. Laug- 
harne, his Master, and his Purser were most honourably acquitted for 
the loss of the ship ; but the first lieutenant, Andrew Duncan, was 
dismissed the service for misbehaviour. — W. L. C. 

1 Navy Department MSS., < Captains' Letters,' 1812, vol. ii., No. 

128, etc. 

2 Navy Department MSS., 'Captains' Letters,' 1812, ii. No. 85. 



Great Britain and the United States 



53 



There was need of hurry. On the afternoon of 
July 16th, when some leagues off Barnegat, Hull 
sighted Captain Broke's squadron, which had just 
previously captured the American brig Nautilus, 14. 
This squadron then consisted of the Shannon, 38, 
Captain Broke, the Belvidera, 36, Captain Richard 
Byron, the Guerriere, 38, Captain James Richard 
Dacres (2), the Africa, 64, Captain John Bastard, 
and the JEolus, 32, Captain Lord James Nugent 
Boyle Bernards Townshend. The Guerriere became 
separated from the rest of the squadron, and the 
Constitution beat to action and stood toward her, the 
wind being very light. The Guerriere also stood 
toward the Constitution, but, early on the 17th, when 
only half a mile away, she discovered the rest of the 
British squadron on her lee beam. She signalled to 
these vessels, and they did not answer — a circum- 
stance which afterwards caused a sharp controversy 
among the Captains ; whereupon, concluding that 
they were Commodore Rodgers's squadron, she 
tacked and stood away from the Constitution some 
time before discovering her mistake. It was now 
nearly daylight. 

As morning broke all the British ships were in 
chase of the Constitution, heading eastward. At 5.30 
it fell entirely calm, and Hull rigged four long 
24's aft to serve as stern-chasers. At 6 a.m. the 
Shannon, the nearest frigate, tried a few shots, which 
fell short. Then most of the boats of the squadron 
were got out to tow her, and she began to gain on 



54 Naval Operations of the War Between 

the American. Hall tried kedging. All the spare 
rope was bent on to the cables and paid out into 
the cutters, and a kedge was run out half a mile 
ahead and let go ; whereupon the crew clapped on 
and walked away with the ship, overrunning and 
tripping the kedge as she came up with the end 
of the line. 1 Meanwhile fresh lines and another 
kedge were carried ahead, and the frigate glided 
away from her pursuers. From time to time there 
were little puffs of air, and every possible advan- 
tage was taken of each. At one time the Guerritre 
opened fire, but her shot fell short. Later in the 
day the Btividcra, observing the benefit which the 
Constitution had derived from warping, did the same, 
and, having men from the other frigates to help 
her, she got near enough to exchange bow and 
stern-chasers ; 2 but fear of the American guns ren- 
dered it impossible for either the Belvidera or the 
Shannon to tow very near. 

The Constitutions crew showed most excellent 
spirit, the officers and men relieving one another 
regularly, and snatching their sleep on the decks. 
All through the afternoon and until late in the 
evening the towing and kedging went on, the 
British ships being barely out of gunshot. Then a 
light breeze sprang up, and, the sails of the Consti- 
tution being handled with consummate skill, she 
gradually drew away, and throughout the following 

1 Cooper is the best authority for this chase. 

2 Marshall's ' Naval Biography,' ii. 626. 



Great Britain and the United States 55 



day continued to gain. In the evening there came 
on a heavy rain squall, of which Hull took such 
skilful advantage that he greatly increased his lead. 
At 8.15 on the morning of the 20th, the British 
ships gave up the pursuit. During the three 
days' chase Hull had shown skill and seamanship 
as great as would be demanded by a successful 
battle, and his men had proved their hardihood, 
discipline, and readiness for work. If they could 
do as well with the guns as with the sails, Hull's 
confidence in his ability to meet any single-decker 
was more than justifiable ; and Hull was eager 
to try the experiment. He did not have long to 
wait. 

The Constitution put into Boston, and on August 
6th made sail to the eastward. Hull acted without 
orders from the Department, for the administration 
was as yet uncertain as to whether it could afford 
to risk its frigates in action. But Hull himself 
wished for nothing so much as a chance to take the 
risk, and he knew that, not being one of the senior 
officers, he would speedily be superseded in the 
command of the Constitution. Accordingly, he 
sailed, right in the track of the British cruisers, to 
the coast of Nova Scotia, where the British fleet had 
its headquarters. In the afternoon of the 19th, in 
latitude 40° 30' N. and 55° W., he made out a 
frigate bearing E. S. E. and to leeward. 1 She proved 
to be his old acquaintance, the Giierriere, under 

1 Letter of Captain Isaac Hull, August 28th and 30th, 1812. 






56 Naval Operations of the War between 



Captain James Richard Dacres (2). 1 It was a cloudy 
day, and the wind blew fresh from the N. W. The 
Guerriere backed her maintopsail, and waited for 
the Constitution, which shortened her sail to fighting 
rig, and ran down with the wind nearly aft. The 
Guerriere was on the starboard tack, and at 
5 o'clock she opened with her weather guns, the 
shot falling short. She then wore round and fired 
her port broadside, the shot this time passing over 
the Constitution} As she again wore to fire her 
starboard battery, the Constitution yawed a little and 
fired two or three of her port bow-guns. Three or 
four times the Guerriere repeated this manoeuvre, 
wearing and firing alternate broadsides with little or 
no effect; while the Constitution yawed to avoid 
being raked, and occasionally fired one of her bow- 
guns. The distance was very great, however, and 
little or no damage was caused. At 6 o'clock the 
Guerriere bore up and ran off with the wind almost 
astern on her port quarter under her topsails and 
jib. The Constitution set her main-topgallantsail and 
foresail, and at 6.5 p.m. closed within half pistol- 
shot distance on her adversary's port beam. 3 Then 
for the first time the action began in earnest, each 
ship firing as the guns bore. By 6.20 4 the two were 
fairly abreast, and the Constitution shot away the 
Guerriere's mizenmast, which fell over the starboard 

1 Letter of Captain Dacres, September 7th, 1812. 

2 Navy Department MSS., 'Logbook of Constitution? vol. ii. 
8 ' Autobiography of Commodore Morris,' p. 164. 

4 6.5 p. M. by the Guerriere's time. — W. L. C 



Great Britain and the United States 57 

quarter, knocking a big hole in the counter, and 
brought the ship round against her helm. The 
British ship was being cut to pieces, while the 
American had hardly suffered at all. The Con- 
stitution, finding that she was ranging ahead, put her 
helm aport and luffed short round her enemy's 
bows, raking her with the starboard guns ; then she 
wore, and again raked with her port battery. The 
Englishman's bowsprit got foul of the American's 
mizen-rigging, and the vessels then lay with the 
Guerrieres starboard bow against the Constitution' 's 
port quarter. 1 The Englishmen's bow-guns played 
havoc with Captain Hull's cabin, setting fire to it ; 
and on both sides the boarders were called away. 
The British ran forward, but Captain Dacres relin- 
quished the idea of attacking when he saw the 
crowds of men on the American's decks ; 2 while 
the Constitutions people, though they gathered aft 
to board, were prevented by the heavy sea which 
was running. Both sides suffered heavily from the 
closeness of the musketry fire ; indeed, it was at 
this time that almost the entire loss of the Consti- 
tution occurred. In the Constitution, as Lieutenant 
William S. Bush of the marines sprang upon the 
taffrail to leap on the Guerrieres deck, a British 
marine shot him dead; Charles Morris, the first 
lieutenant, and John C. Alwyn, the master, had also 
both leaped on the taffrail, and both were at the 

1 Cooper in ' Putnam's Magazine,' i. 475. 

2 Dacres's address to the court-martial at Halifax. 



58 Naval Operations of the War Between 



same moment wounded by the musketry fire. In 
the Guerriere almost all the men on the forecastle 
were picked off. Captain Dacres himself was shot 
and wounded by one of the American mizentop men 
while he was standing on the starboard forecastle 
hammocks cheering on his crew; the first and 
second lieutenants, Bartholomew Kent and Henry 
Ready, and the master, Robert Scott, were also shot 
down. The ships gradually worked round until 
they got clear. Immediately afterwards the 
Guerriere s foremast and mainmast went by the 
board, leaving her a defenceless hulk, rolling her 
main-deck guns into the water. At 6.30 the Con- 
stitution ran off for a little distance, and lay to until 
she had repaired the damages to her rigging. 
Captain Hull then stood under his adversary's lee, 
and the latter struck at 7 p.m., just two hours after 
she had fired the first shot ; the actual fighting, 
however, occupied but little over twenty-five 
minutes. 

The Constitution was a very much heavier ship 
than the Guerriere. She carried thirty-two long 
24's and twenty-two 32-pr. carronades, while the 
Guerriere carried thirty long 18's, two long 12's, and 
eighteen 32-pr. carronades ; the Constitutions crew 
numbered 456 all told, while the Guerriere s num- 
bered but 282, and 10 of these were Americans, who 
refused to fight against their countrymen, and whom 
Captain Dacres, very greatly to his credit, permitted 
to go below. Fourteen of the Constitutions men 



Great Britain and the United States 59 

and 79 of the Gucrricres were killed or wounded. 1 
The damage done to the Constitution was trilling, 
while the Guerriere was so knocked to pieces that 
she had to be abandoned and burned by the victors, 
who then set sail for Boston, which they reached on 
August 30th. " Captain Hull and his officers," 
wrote Captain Dacres, " have treated us like brave 
and generous enemies ; the greatest care has been 
taken that we should not lose the smallest trifle." 

Rarely has any single-ship action caused such joy 
to the victors, such woe to the vanquished. The 
disparity of force between the combatants was very 
nearly in the proportion of three to two. Against 
such odds, when there was an approximate equality 
in courage and skill, neither Dacres 2 nor any other 
captain in the British Navy could hope to succeed. 
But hitherto the British had refused to admit that 
there was or could be any equality of courage and 
skill between them and their foes. Moreover, the 
disparity in loss was altogether disproportionate to 
the disparity in force. No one could question the 
gallantry with which the British ship was fought ; 
but in gunnery she showed at a great disadvantage 

1 The Guerriere lost 15 killed, including Lieutenant Henry 
Ready, and 63 (6 mortally) wounded, including Captain Dacres, 
Lieutenant Bartholomew Kent, Master Robert Scott, Master's Mates 
Samuel Grant and William John Snow, and Midshipman James 
Enslie. — W. L. C. 

2 Captain Dacres was tried at Halifax on Oct. 2nd, and, with 
his officers and crew, unanimously and honourably acquitted. — 
W. L. C. 



60 Naval Operations of the War Between 

compared to the American, and she was not handled 
with as much judgment. Like all the other British 
captains on the American coast, Dacres had been 
intensely eager to meet one of the large American 
frigates, and no doubt of his success had crossed his 
mind. British captains, in single-ship contests, had 
not been accustomed to weigh too nicely the odds 
against them ; and in the twenty years during which 
they had overcome the navies of every maritime 
power in Europe they had repeatedly conquered in 
single fight where the difference in force against 
them had been far heavier than in this instance. 
This was the case when, in 1799, the British 38-gun 
18-pr. frigate Sibyl captured the French 44-gun 24-pr. 
frigate Forte; when, in 1805, the Phoenix, 36, cap- 
tured the Didon, 40 ; when, in 1808, the San Fiorcnzo, 
36, captured the Piedmontaise, 40 ; and in many 
other instances. The exultation of the Americans 
was as natural as was the depression of the British ; 
though both feelings were exaggerated. 

Captain Hull owed his victory as much to superi- 
ority of force as to superiority of skill ; but in the 
next sea fidit that occurred the decisive difference 

O 

was in skill. On October 18th the American 18-gun 
ship-sloop Wasp, Captain Jacob Jones, mounting 
sixteen 32-pr. carronades and two long 12' s, with 
137 men all told, sailed from the Delaware. She 
went south-eastward to get into the track of the 
West India vessels ; and on the 16th ran into a 
heavy gale in which she lost her jib-boom, and two 



Great Britain and the United States 61 



men who were on it. On the 17th the weather had 
moderated somewhat, and late in the evening she 
descried several sails in latitude 37° N. and longi- 
tude 65° W. 1 These were a convoy of merchantmen 
guarded by the British 18-gun brig-sloop Frolic, car- 
rying sixteen 32-pr. carronades, two long 6's and two 
12-pr. carronades, with a crew of 110 men. She 
was under the command of Commander Thomas 
Whinyates, and had also suffered in the gale of 
the 16th, in which her mainyard had been carried 
away. 2 The morning of the 18th was almost cloud- 
less, and the Wasp bore down on the convoy under 
short fighting canvas ; while the Frolic hauled to 
the wind under her boom-mainsail and close-reefed 
foretopsail, the merchantmen making all sail to lee- 
ward. At 11.30 a.m. the action began, the two 
ships running parallel on the starboard tack within 
sixty yards of one another, the Wasp firing her port 
and the Frolic her starboard guns. By degrees the 
ships fell off until they were almost before the wind. 
There was a heavy sea running, which caused the 
vessels to pitch and roll ; and the two crews cheered 
loudly as the ships wallowed through the water. 
Clouds of spray dashed over both crews, and at 
times the muzzles of the guns were rolled under ; 3 
but in spite of the rough weather the batteries were 
well served. The Frolic fired far more rapidly than 

1 Letter of Captain Jones, Nov. 24th, 1812. The American let- 
ters can generally be found in ' Niles's Register.' 

2 Captain Whinyates' letter, Oct. 18th, 1812. 

3 ' Niles's Register,' iii. 324. 



62 Naval Operations of the War Between 

the Wasp, delivering three broadsides to her oppon- 
ent's two, and shooting while on the crests of the 
seas. The shot, in consequence, tended to go high. 
In the Wasp the captains of the guns aimed with 
skill and precision, as the engaged side of their ship 
was getting down. They therefore fired into their 
opponent's hull ; so that, though they fired fewer 
shots, a much larger proportion hit. Four minutes 
after the action began, the Wasps maintopmast 
was shot away and fell with its yard across the 
port foretopsail braces, rendering the head-yards 
unmanageable. Ten minutes later the gaff and 
mizen-topgallantmast came down; and twenty 
minutes after the action had begun, every brace 
and most of the rigging was shot away, so that it 
was almost impossible to brace any of the yards. 
But while the Wasp suffered thus aloft, the Frolic 
was suffering far more heavily below. Her gaff 
and her head braces were shot away, and her lower 
masts wounded; but her hull was cut to pieces. 
The slaughter was very great among her crew; 
nevertheless, the survivors fought on with splendid 
courage. Gradually the Wasp forged ahead, while 
the two vessels drew closer together, so that at last 
the Americans struck the Frolics side with their 
rammers in loading. The Frolic then fell aboard 
her antagonist, her jibboom coming in between the 
main and mizen-rigging of the Wasp, and passing 
over the heads of Captain Jones and Lieutenant 
James Biddle as they stood near the capstan. The 



Great Britain and the United States 63 



bris was raked from stem to stern ; and in another 
moment the Americans began to swarm along the 
Frolics bowsprit, though the roughness of the sea 
rendered the boarding very difficult. A New Jersey 
sailor, Jack Lang, was the first man on the bowsprit. 
Lieutenant Biddle then leaped on the hammock 
cloth to board; but one of the midshipmen who 
was following him seized his coat-tails and tumbled 
him back on deck. At the next swell he succeeded 
in getting on the bowsprit behind Jack Lang and 
another seaman, and he passed them both on the 
forecastle; but there was no one to oppose him. 
Not twenty of the British were left unhurt, and 
most of those were below. The man at the wheel 
was still at his post, doggedly attending to his duty, 
and two or three more were on deck, including 
Captain Whinyates and Lieutenant Frederick Bough- 
ton Wintle, both so severely wounded that they 
could not stand without support. It was impossible 
to resist longer, and Lieutenant Biddle lowered the 
flag at 12.15, after three-quarters of an hour's 
fighting. 

A minute or two afterwards the Frolic s masts 
went by the board. Every one of her officers was 
wounded, two of them mortally. 1 The Wasp lost 
but ten men, chiefly aloft. Nevertheless, the des- 

1 The Frolic went into action with 110 men and boys all told on 
board. Of these, 15 were killed and 47 wounded, besides some who 
were slightly hurt. Among the wounded were Commander Whin- 
yates, Lieutenants Charles M'Kay (mortally), and Frederick Bough- 
ton Wintle, and Master John Stephens (mortally). — W. L. C. 



64 Naval Operations of the War Between 

perate defence of the Frolic in the end accomplished 
the undoing of her foe, for in a few hours a British 
74, the Poictiers, Captain John Poo Beresford, hove 
in sight, and captured both victor and vanquished, 
the Wasp being too much cut up aloft to make her 
escape. 

The two ships were of practically equal force : in 
broadside the British used ten guns to the Ameri- 
can's nine, and threw a few pounds more weight of 
metal, while they had twenty-five fewer men. The 
disparity in loss was enormous. The Frolic was des- 
perately defended ; no men in any navy ever showed 
more courage than Captain Whinyates and his crew. 
The battle was decided by gunnery, the coolness and 
skill of the Americans, and the great superiority in 
the judgment and accuracy with which they fired, 
giving them the victory. Their skill was rendered 
all the more evident by the extreme roughness of 
the sea, which might have been expected to prevent, 
and, in the case of the Frolic, actually did prevent, 
very great accuracy of aim. In forty-five minutes the 
American ship cut her antagonist to pieces, conquer- 
ing a foe who refused to admit defeat until literally 
unable to return a blow. 

On October 8th Commander Rodgers left Boston, 
on his second cruise, with the President, United 
States, Congress, and Argus. Three days out they 
separated. The President and Congress cruised to- 
gether, nearly crossing the Atlantic, but did nothing 
more than capture a dozen merchantmen, though 



Great Britain and the United States 6c 

they twice chased British frigates — once the 
Nymphe, 38, 1 once the Galatea, 36/* They returned 
to Boston on December 31st. The Argus got in 
about the same time, having herself been chased for 
three days by a British frigate. 3 She had to start 
her water and cut away her boats and anchors to 
escape ; but she kept her guns, and during the chase 
actually succeeded in taking and manning a prize, 
though the delay allowed the pursuer to get near 
enough to open fire as the vessels separated. 

The fourth ship of Rodgers's squadron met w r ith 
greater luck. This was the frigate United States, 
44, Captain Stephen Decatur. She was a sister ship 
to the Constitution, but mounted 42-pr. carronades 
instead of 32's, and had a crew of 478 officers and 
men all told. On October 25th, in latitude 29° N. 
and longitude 29° 30' W., she descried a sail on her 
weather-beam, twelve miles distant. 4 This was the 
British 38-gun frigate Macedonian, Captain John 
Surmam Carden. Unlike the Guerriere, which had 
been captured from the French, she was a new oak- 
built ship, rather larger than any of the American 
18-pr. frigates. She carried a crew of 301 men all 
told. Her armament w T as like the Guerriere s, ex- 
cept that she had two long 18's few r er on the main- 

1 Captain Farmery Predam Epworth. The Nymphe was sighted 
and chased on October 10th. — W. L. C. 

2 Captain Woodley Losack. The Galatea was sighted on October 
31st. — W. L. C. 

8 Letter of Captain Arthur Sinclair, Jan. 4th, 1813. 
4 Letter of Captain Decatur, Oct. 30th, 1812. 

5 



66 Naval Operations of the War Between 

deck, and two long 9's extra on the spar-deck. 
Like the Guerriere, she had an 18-pr. carronade 
extra, so that she presented twenty-five guns in 
broadside, throwing 547 pounds of shot ; while the 
United States had twenty-seven guns in broadside, 
throwing nominally 846 pounds of shot, although 
owing to the short weight of metal the actual broad- 
side was probably under 800. 

The Macedonian was reputed to be a crack ship. 
Captain Carden had exercised every care to gather 
a crew of picked, first-rate men. He had also taken 
every opportunity to get rid of all the shiftless and 
slovenly seamen. Both he himself and his first 
lieutenant, David Hope, were merciless disciplina- 
rians, and kept the crew in order by the unsparing 
use of the lash, in which they seemed positively to 
delight. They were feared even more than they 
were hated, and the discipline of the ship was 
seemingly perfect ; but they made the men under 
them detest the service. 1 

Lieutenant Hope said afterwards that the state of 
discipline on board was excellent ; and that in no 
British ship was more attention paid to gunnery. 2 

i ' Thirty Years from Home, or a Voice from the Main-deck, be- 
ing the Experience of Samuel Leech,' fifteenth edition, 1847, pp. 89, 
99, etc. Leech was an Englishman who was a sailor in the Mace- 
donian ; he afterwards entered the United States service, with others 
of the Macedonian's crew. He belonged to the British Nonconform- 
ist type, which has so many points in common with the average 
American citizen. His rambling reminiscences are by no means 
without value. 

2 Marshall's ' Xavy Biography,' ii. 1018. 



Great Britain and the United States 67 

The results of the action showed, however, that the 
discipline was that of a martinet, and that in intelli- 
gence and judgment the gunners of the Macedonian 
could not compare with those in the United States, 
where the sailors were admirably drilled, and yet 
were treated so humanely that the captured crew 
speedily wished to enlist among them. 

Captain Carden knew nothing of the defeat of the 
Guerricre, and was most anxious to engage the 
United States. Once, while at Norfolk before the 
war, he and Decatur had met and joked one another 
as to which ship would win if they met in battle. 
The Macedonians people were entirely confident of 
victory, although among the crew there was a gen- 
erally expressed wish that the antagonist were a 
French, instead of an American, frigate, because 
they knew that they could whip the French, and they 
had learned from the Americans on board that the 
Yankee frigates carried heavy metal. 

Of these American seamen there was a considera- 
ble number among the crew of the Macedonian. A 
British seaman, who served long on the Macedonian, 
in writing out his reminiscences in after-life, gave a 
vivid picture of how they happened to be on board. 
In one place he described the work of the press-gang 
at a certain port, adding " among (the impressed 
men) were a few Americans ; they were taken with- 
out respect to their protections, which were often 
taken from them and destroyed ; some were released 
through the influence of the American Consul ; 



68 Naval Operations of the War Between 

others, less fortunate, were carried to sea, to their 
no small chagrin." When the ship was at Norfolk, 
as already mentioned, the sailors were denied all 
liberty to get on shore lest they should desert. 
" Many of our crew were Americans ; some of 
these were pressed men ; others were much dis- 
satisfied with the severity, not to say cruelty, of our 
discipline; so that a multitude of the crew were 
ready to give leg-bail, as they termed it, could they 
have planted their feet on American soil." 1 Before 
going into action some of these Americans requested 
permission not to fight against their countrymen ; 
but Captain Carden, unlike Captain Dacres, refused 
to grant this permission, and ordered them to the 
guns under penalty of death. One or two of them 
were killed in the action. The crew of the United 
States was mainly composed of native Americans, 
but among the foreigners on board there were a 
number of Englishmen, as well as many Americans, 
who had served in the British fleet. 2 All did their 
duty equally well. 

1 Leech, pp. 80, 102. 

2 " That Britons were opposed to Britons in the Macedonian 
action is no less true than lamentable. Most of her gallant de- 
fenders recognised old shipmates in the British Navy among those 
who had fought under the American flag. We have already stated 
that a quartermaster discovered his first cousin in the person of a 
traitor. Two other seamen met with brothers from whom they had 
been long separated ; and Mr. James, in his ' Naval History,' informs 
us that an officer's servant, a young lad from London, named Wil- 
liam Hearne, found his own brother among the United States' crew. 
... It is also worthy of remark that many of the guns on board the 



Great Britain and the United States 69 

As soon as it was evident what the United States 
was, the Macedonian beat to quarters, the bulkheads 
were knocked away, the guns were cast loose, and 
in a few minutes all was ready. In the excitement 
of the battle the men forgot their wrongs, real and 
fancied, and went into action in good spirits ; and 
throughout the fight they continued to cheer heart- 
ily. The junior midshipmen were stationed below 
on the berth-deck with orders to shoot any man who 
ran from his quarters ; and the captain exhorted the 
men to show fidelity and courage, quoting Nelson's 
famous words, " England expects every man to do 
his duty." 1 

The Macedonian then bore down toward the 
United States, which stood toward her with the 
wind a little forward of the portbeam. Captain 
Carden, from over-anxiety to keep the weather- 
gage, 2 hauled by the wind, and passed far to wind- 
ward of the American. Decatur eased off and fired 

United States were named after British ships, and some of our most 
celebrated naval commanders. Captain Carden, observing ' Vic- 
tory ' painted on the ship's side over one port, and 'Nelson' over 
another, asked Commodore Decatur the reason of so strange an 
anomaly. He answered : • The men belonging to those guns served • 
many years with Lord Nelson, and in the Victory. The crew of the 
gun named ' Nelson ' were once bargemen to that great chief. ..." 
— Marshall : ' Nav. Biog.' ii. 1019. But it does not necessarily fol- 
low that men who had served with Nelson were British subjects ; 
and it is admitted on both sides that before 1812 very many Ameri- 
cans had served with honour in the British Navy. — W. L. C. 

1 Leech, 127, etc. 

2 Sentence of court-martial held on board the San Domingo, 74, 
at Bermuda, May 27th, 1813. 



jo Naval Operations of the War Between 

a broadside, which fell short ; he then held his luff, 
and, the next time he fired, his long main-deck gnns, 
the only ones used, told heavily. The Englishman 
responded with his long 18's, but soon found that at 
long bowls the American had the advantage, not 
only in weight of metal, but also in rapidity of 
fire, for the broadsides of the United States were 
delivered almost twice as fast as those of the 
Macedonian} Captain Carden soon altered his mind 
and tried to close ; but he had lost his chance by 
keeping his wind in the first place, and, when he 
bore up and down with the wind on his port- 
quarter, he exposed himself to heavy punishment. 
The United States at 10.15 a.m. led her maintopsail 
aback and used her whole port broadside. The 
British ship replied with her starboard guns, hauling 
up to do so, while the American alternately eased 
off and came to, keeping up a terrific fire. The 
guns of the Macedonian caused some damage to the 
American's rigging, but hardly touched her hull, 
while Carden' s ship suffered heavily both below and 
aloft, and her decks began to look like slaughter- 
pens. The British sailors fought like tigers — some 
stripped to the shirt, others to the naked skin. 
Those who were killed outright were immediately 
thrown overboard. One man, who was literally cut 
almost in two by a shot, was caught as he fell by 
two or three of his shipmates, and, before the last 
flicker of life had left him, was tossed into the sea. 

1 James, vi. 169. 



Great Britain and the United States 71 

Lieutenant Hope showed that, though a cruel task- 
master, he at least possessed undaunted courage. 
He was wounded, but as soon as the wound was 
dressed returned to the deck, shouting to the men 
to fight on; and he alone advised against striking 
the flag, preferring to see the ship sink beneath 
him. 1 The Macedonian gradually dropped to leeward, 
while the American forereached until the firing 
ceased. Finding herself ahead and to windward, the 
United States tacked and ranged up under the 
Macedonians lee, at 11.15, when the latter struck 
her colours, an hour after the action began. 

The United States had suffered very little. Some 
of her spars were wounded, and the rigging was a 
good deal cut up ; but her hull had not been touched 
more than two or three times. As the ships were 
never close enough to be within fair range of 
grape and musketry, only a dozen of her men 
were killed and wounded. The Macedonian, on the 
other hand, had received over a hundred shots in 
her hull ; her mizenmast and her fore and main- 
topmasts were shot away, and on the engaged side 
all her carronades but two, and two of her main-deck 
guns, were dismounted, while one hundred and four 2 
of the crew were either killed or wounded. 3 

1 Leech, 131. 

2 The killed numbered 38, including Boatswain James Holmes, 
Master's Mate Thomas James Nankivel, and Mr. Dennis Colwell, 
schoolmaster. Among the 68 wounded were Lieutenants David 



3 Captain Carden's Letter, Oct. 23th, 1812. 



72 Naval Operations of the War Between 

When the Americans came on board to take 
possession, the British crew, maddened by the sight 
of their dead comrades, heated with the fury of the 
battle, and excited by rum they had obtained from 
the spirit-room, evinced a tendency to fight their 
captors. But the latter showed so much good 
humour, and set to work with such briskness to 
take care of the wounded and put the ship to rights, 
that the two crews soon became the best of friends, 
and ate, drank, sang, laughed, and yarned together 
with hearty goodwill. A rather unexpected result 
was that the majority of the captive crew soon 
showed a disposition to enlist in the American navy, 
especially when they found out how much more 
kindly the seamen were treated in the American 
ships. The Americans, however, not only refused 
to enlist them, but also kept close guard over them 
to prevent their escape, as it was wished to send 
them to England in a cartel to exchange for 
American prisoners. 1 However, in one way or 
another, most of them managed to get away, a few 
only venturing to enlist in the American navy, as 
death would naturally be their portion if they were 
recaptured and recognised by the British. 

Hope and John Bulford, Master's Mate Henry Roebuck, Midship- 
man George Greenway, and Mr. Francis Baker, first-class volunteer. 
Captain Carden and his officers and men, upon trial for the loss of 
the ship, were most honourably acquitted, the court specially com- 
mending Carden's gallantry, and the good conduct and discipline of 
all concerned. — W. L. C. 

1 Leech. He is the authority for most of the incidents of the 
action, as seen from the Macedonian. 



Great Britain and the United States 73 

Decatur discontinued his cruise to take back his 
prize to the United States. He reached New London 
in safety, and the Macedonian became part of the 
American navy. 

In this fight the Macedonian s only superiority 
over the United States was speed. In force she was 
very much inferior, about in the proportion of three 
to two, so that only marked superiority in seaman- 
ship and gunnery could have given her the victory. 
As a matter of fact, however, the superiority was 
the other way. Decatur handled his ship faultlessly, 
and "William Henry Allen, first lieutenant of the 
United States, had trained the men to the highest 
point of efficiency in the use of the guns. The gun 
practice of the Macedonian s crew was apparently 
poor, but this was probably as much the fault of the 
captain as of the gunners, for he first kept off too 
far, so as to give all possible advantage to the 
24-poimders of the Americans, and then made his 
attack in such a manner as to allow his skilful 
adversaries to use their guns to the best advantage. 
The Macedonian was bravely fought, and was not 
surrendered until there was no hope of success left. 
Still, the defence was not so desperate as that of the 
Essex, nor indeed did the ship lose so heavily as 
the Java or CJiesapeaJce. Captain Carden had bravely 
encountered heavy odds, for during the preceding 
twenty years the traditions of the British Navy had 
taught him that it was possible to win against such 
odds. This had been proved scores of times in 



74 Naval Operations of the War Between 

single fight at the expense of the French, the 
Spaniards, the Dutch, the Danes, and the Turks. 
But only a real superiority in skill could have 
warranted the effort. An eminent British officer, 
Sir Howard Douglas, sums up the action very 
justly, though he ascribes wholly to inferior gun- 
nery what should be in part ascribed to lack of 
judgment on the side of the commanding officer. 
He says : — 

" As a display of courage the character of the service was 
nobly upheld ; but we would be deceiving ourselves were 
we to admit that the comparative expertness of the crews 
in gunnery was equally satisfactory. Now, taking the dif- 
ference of effect as given by Captain Carden, we must draw 
this conclusion — that the comparative loss in killed and 
wounded (104 to 12), together with the dreadful account he 
gives of the condition of his own ship, while he admits that 
the enemy's vessel was in comparatively good order, must 
have arisen from inferiority in gunnery, as well as in 
force." 

Elsewhere the same writer comments upon the 
dangers to which encounters with skilful opponents 
exposed captains who had been led by repeated 
triumphs over men of inferior discipline and ability 
to feel that defeat was out of question, and to 
" contemn all manoeuvring as a sign of timidity." 
It was the old lesson of the ill effects of over-confi- 
dence, complicated by the effects of following under 
wrong conditions the course which a great man had 
followed under right ones. Timid manoeuvring 



Great Britain and the United States 75 

was an error, especially in the presence of an unskil- 
ful or inferior foe ; and it was to such manoeuvring 
that Nelson alluded when — or if — he said, " Never 
mind manoeuvring — go at them." Nelson knew 
very well when to manoeuvre and when not to, and 
his own genius and the skill of his captains and 
seamen enabled him to defy heavy odds. But it 
was a very different thing for would-be imitators of 
Nelson's tactics who lacked his genius, and who had 
to encounter superiority in skill as well as superi- 
ority in physical force. 

On October 26th, 1 the Constitution, Captain 
William Bainbridge, and the Hornet, Captain James 
Lawrence, sailed ; and, after cruising to and fro, 
arrived off San Salvador on December 13th. There 
they found a British ship of twenty guns, the Bonne 
Citoyenne, Captain Pitt Burnaby Greene, almost 
exactly of the Hornet's force, and Lawrence chal- 
lenged her captain to single fight, the Constitution 
giving the usual pledges not to interfere. The chal- 
lenge was refused, for a variety of reasons ; among 
others, because the Bonne Citoyenne was carrying 
home half a million pounds in specie. Leaving the 
Hornet to blockade her, Bainbridge ran off to the 
southward. 

At 9 a.m. on December 29th, while the Constitution 
was running along the coast of Brazil about thirty 
miles off shore, in latitude 13° 6' S. and longitude 

1 James says that the Constitution and Hornet left Boston on 
October 30th. — W. L. C. 



yd Naval Operations of the War Between 

32° W., 1 she made out the British frigate Java, 
Captain Henry Lambert, inshore and to westward. 2 
The Java at once bore down in chase, while the 
Constitution stood toward her on the starboard tack. 3 
The Java was of the same strength as the Guerriere, 
except that she had a crew of about four hundred 
men, 4 and carried two long guns less, and two car- 
ronades more. 5 The Constitution had sent ashore 
two of her carronades, and had four hundred and 
seventy-five men in her crew. 

The Java was much the swifter ship, for the 
weak point in all the American 44's was their lack 
of speed. In point of physical force the combatants 
stood more nearly on an equality than in either of 

1 James (vi. 126) gives the time of sighting as 2 p. M. (an obvious 
error), and the position as lat. 13° 6' S., long. 30° W. — W. L. C. 

2 Letter of Captain Bainbridge, Jan. 3rd, 1813. 

8 Letter of Lieutenant Henry Ducie Chads, Dec. 31st, 1812. 

4 James explains that on August 17th, 1812, the Java, 38 (ex- 
Renommee), had been commissioned at Portsmouth to carry to Bom- 
bay the newly-appointed governor, Lieut. -General Hislop and a 
supply of stores ; and says that her ship's company included about 
60 raw Irish landsmen, and 50 disaffected seamen from the Coquette, 
18, besides a considerable number of Marine Society boys — in all 
397 persons of every description, mainly inexperienced. She had 
sailed from Spithead on November 12th, in charge of two Indiamen, 
and, on December 12th, had captured the American merchantman 
William, into which she had put a prize crew of 20, all told. The 
Indiamen had afterwards parted company, and the Java had put 
into San Salvador for water. — W. L. C. 

6 See Roosevelt's ' Naval War of 1812,' p. 126, for full discussion 
of the figures given above. The official accounts contradict one 
another flatly. The reason for the great number of men aboard the 
Java was because she was carrying part of the crews for three other 
British ships. 



Great Britain and the United States 77 

the other frigate duels, the odds being about five to 
four, or rather less — odds which were a heavy 
handicap to the Java, but which were not such as 
to render the contest by any means hopeless if the 
weaker party were even slightly superior in skill 
and fighting efficiency. 

The Constitution stood away from the land towards 
the S.E., while the Java made sail on a parallel 
course to windward, and gained rapidly. At half- 
past one the Constitution shortened her canvas to 
fighting rig, and ran easily off on the port tack. 
The Java also shortened sail, and came down off 
the wind toward her adversary's weather quarter. 
The colours of the two ships floated from every mast 
in proud defiance, the decks were cleared to fighting 
trim, and the men stood ready at quarters. At 
2 p.m. they opened fire at long range, the British 
with the lee and the Americans with the weather 
guns. The firing was very spirited, and at the 
beginning the ships suffered about equally, for the 
first broadside of the Java was well aimed, killing 
and wounding several of the Constitutions crew. 
The Englishman kept edging down until he got 
well within range of grape and musketry. Being 
swifter, he soon forereached, intending to wear 
across his antagonist's bow and rake him ; but Bain- 
bridge anticipated the movement, and himself wore 
in the smoke. The two antagonists again ran off 
side by side, with the wind on their starboard beams, 
the Englishman still a-weather, and steering freer 



7S Naval Operations of the War Between 



than the Constitution, which had luffed to close. 1 
The action went on at pistol-shot distance ; but in 
a few minutes the Java again forged ahead out of 
the weight of her adversary's fire and then kept off 
as before ; and. as before, the Constitution avoided 
this by wearing, both ships once more coming round 
with their heads to the east, the American still to 
leeward. The Java kept the advantage of the wind, 
and still forereached a little ; and she sought to rake 
the Constitution as the latter from time to time 
luffed in the endeavour to close ; but after the first 
broadside or two her gunnery had fallen off. Most 
of the loss which she inflicted was inflicted early in 
the action. 

Bainbridge, finding that his foe outsailed him, 
and that he was therefore constantly in danger of 
beino- raked, set the Constitution s foresail and main- 
sail, and came up close on the Jaws lee beam. The 
weight of his fire then told heavily, and among other 
losses the Jams jib-boom and the end of her bow- 
sprit were carried away. The Constitution in her 
turn forced ahead, and again wore in the smoke. 
The Java hove in stays, but the loss of her headsail 
made her fall off very slowly; and the American 
frigate, passing across her stern two cable-lengths 
away, raked her heavily. As the Java fell off she 
replied with her port guns, and the two vessel? bore 
up and ran off with the wind nearly aft, the Java 
still to windward. She was suffering heavily, and 

1 Xavy Departmental MSS.. Log of Constitution. 



Great Britain and the United States 79 

the Constitution very little. The ships were well 
within musketry range, and the British lost many 
men by the fire from the American topmen, and 
still more from the round and grape ; but the crew 
showed no signs of flinching, and fought on like 
tigers. Captain Lambert saw that he was beaten at 
the guns, and that he was being. cut to pieces both 
below and aloft ; and he resolved to try boarding. 
The helm was put a-weather, and the Java came 
down for the Constitutions main-chains. The boarders 
and marines gathered in the gangways and on the 
forecastle, the boatswain having been ordered to 
cheer them with his pipe that they might make a 
clean spring. 1 But boarding was a hazardous ex- 
periment to try against an enemy not already well 
beaten at the guns. As the Java came down, the 
Americans raked her with terrible effect, taking out 
her foremast and maintopmast. The stump of the 
Java's bowsprit caught in the Constitutions mizen- 
rigging, and she was raked again, while the Ameri- 
ican marines and topmen, by their steady fire, 
prevented any effort to board. 

Finally the ships got clear ; and once again they 
ran off abreast. Again the Constitution forereached, 
and, wearing, luffed up under the Java's quarter, 
raked her with the starboard guns, and wore again, 
recommencing the action with her port battery. 
Once more the vessels were abreast, and the action 

1 Minutes of court-martial held on board H.M.S. Gladiator, 
Portsmouth, April 23rd, 1813. 



80 Naval Operations of the War Between 

went on as furiously as ever, the Java refusing to 
acknowledge defeat. The wreck of her tophamper 
lay over her starboard side, taking fire every few 
minutes ; and at that time her able and gallant 
commander was mortally wounded by a ball fired by 
one of the American maintop men. 1 Lieutenant 
Henry Ducie Chads then took the command, though 
painfully wounded. The British sailors continued 
to fight with undaunted resolution, cheering lustily ; 
but nothing could stand against the cool precision 
of the Yankee fire. The decks of the Java looked 
like a slaughter-house ; one by one her masts fell ; 
her guns were silenced ; and she lay a sheer hulk on 
the water, when, at 4.5 p.m., the Constitution, think- 
ing that her adversary had struck, ceased firing and 
passed out of action to windward. There she spent 
an hour in repairing damages and securing her 
masts; then, in practically as good condition as 
ever, she stood towards her foe, who struck his 
flas;. 

The American ship had suffered but little either 
in hull or aloft, and, after an hour of repairs, was 
again in good fighting trim. Thirty-four of her 
crew were killed or wounded, 2 for the Java had 
been more skilfully handled and more stubbornly 
fought than either the Guerriere or the Macedonian. 
The British ship was a riddled and dismasted hulk. 
" The Java sustained unequalled injuries beyond the 

1 Report of the Surgeon of the Java. 

2 Report of the Surgeon of the Constitution. 



Great Britain and the United States 81 

Constitution" ran the statement of one of her offi- 
cers. 1 One hundred and twenty-four of those on 
board her were killed or wounded. 2 Captain Bain- 
bridge reported that the Java was " exceedingly 
well handled and bravely fought," and paid a de- 
served tribute to the worth and bravery of Captain 
Lambert ; 3 while Lieutenant Chads in his report 
stated that " our gallant enemy has treated us most 
generously," and Lieutenant-General Hislop pre- 
sented Bainbridsre with a handsome sword. Owing; 
to the distance from home, the Java was destroyed, 
and the Constitution presently returned to the United 
States. 

The fight was remarkable because of the rather 
complicated nature of the manoeuvres, and the skill 

1 ' Xaval Chronicle,' xxix. 432. 

2 The Java went into action with a crew of 377 all told, including 
supernumeraries, 20 others having been sent on board the William. 
Of these, 22 were killed, and 102 wounded. Among the killed were 
Master's Mates Charles Jones, Thomas Hammond, and William 
Gascoigne, Midshipmen William Salmond and Edward Keele, and 
Clerk (supernumerary) Thomas Joseph Matthias. Among the 
wounded were Captain Henry Lambert (who died on January 4th, 
1813), Lieutenant Henry Ducie Chads, Master Batty Robinson, 
Second Lieutenant David Davies, R.M., Boatswain James Humble, 
and four Midshipmen, besides, among the supernumeraries, Com- 
mander John Marshall, Lieutenant James Saunders, Master's Mate 
William Brown, and General Hislop's aide-de-camp. Midshipman 
Keele, who was only thirteen years of age, was not killed outright, 
but died in a few hours. Mr. Humble lost a hand, and had a wound 
near the elbow, but, after having a tourniquet put on, returned to 
his duty. — W. L. C. 

3 Captain Henry Lambert had received his post commission on 
April 10th, 1805. — W. L. C. 

6 



82 Naval Operations of the War Between 

with which they were performed. As regards the 
tactical ability with which the ships were handled, 
there was nothing to choose ; and certainly no men 
could have fought more gallantly than the Java's 
crew ; but there was a very great difference in the 
comparative efficiency of the two crews as fighting 
machines, especially in gunnery. The difference in 
the damage done was utterly out of proportion to 
the difference in force. Probably the material of the 
Constitution's crew was slightly better than that of 
the Java, for the seafaring folk from among whom 
it was recruited were peculiarly handy and resource- 
ful, and they enlisted freely in the American ships, 
regarding the quarrel as peculiarly their own ; while 
the British frigates were manned by pressed men 
from many different sources, who were full of fight, 
but who had little cause to love their task-masters. 
The main reason for the difference in fighting effi- 
ciency, however, was that one crew had been care- 
fully trained, and the other had not. The Java's 
crew had been on board her six weeks, and, when 
the Constitution fought her first battle, the crew had 
been on board her only five weeks ; but the Consti- 
tution's crew from the very beginning were incessantly 
practised in firing, both with blank cartridges and 
also at a target ; whereas the Java, during the entire 
six weeks, had fired but six broadsides, all of blank 
cartridges, and her crew had been exercised only 
occasionally even in pointing the guns. Thus the 
Americans were trained to shoot with a precision 



Great Britain and the United States 83 

entirely foreign to their opponents. Moreover, they 
were better trained to play different parts, so that, 
for instance, the sudden loss of a gun captain did 
not demoralise the rest of the crew, who were able 
immediately to supply his place from among them- 
selves. The petty officers, also, among the Ameri- 
cans were better paid than in the British ships, and 
were of a better class ; and the American officers 
showed greater zeal and intelligence in getting their 
men into order, and in drilling them in the essen- 
tials, never losing sight of the fact that efficiency in 
fighting was the first consideration, to which all 
considerations of show came second. 

The Hornet continued to blockade the Bonne 
Citoyenne until January 24th, 1813, the latter still 
refusing to fight and jeopardise the treasure she had 
on board. Then the Montagu, 74, 1 arrived, and the 
Hornet, under cover of the darkness, stood out to sea. 
She made a few prizes, one of much value. On 
February 24th, 1813, near the mouth of the De- 
merara River, Captain Lawrence, being near shore, 
discovered a man-of-war brig lying at anchor ; and 
while beating round Caroband bank in order to get 
at her, he discovered another man-of-war brig edging 
clown on his weather quarter. 2 Both were British. 
The one at anchor was the Espiegle, of sixteen 32-pr. 
carronades, and two 6-prs., Commander John 

1 Captain Manley Hall Dixon, bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral 
Manley Dixon commanding on the Brazilian station. — W. L. C. 

2 Letter of Captain Lawrence, March 20th, 1813. 



84 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Taylor (1) ; the other was the Peacock, Commander 
William Peake, which for some unknown reason 
had exchanged her 32-pr. carronades for 24's. 1 She 
had left the Espiegles anchorage that morning at 
ten o'clock. The Hornet at once turned to attack 
the newcomer, being anxious to get rid of her before 
her companion inside the bar could come to her 
assistance. 

At 4.20 p.m. the Peacock hoisted her colours, and 
the Hornet beat to quarters and cleared for action. 
Lawrence kept close hauled to get the weather-gage. 
When he was sure that he could weather the enemy, 
he tacked at 5.10 and stood toward her, hoisting his 
colours. The ship and the brig were now both on 
the wind — the Hornet on the starboard, and the 
Peacock on the port, tack. At 5.25 they exchanged 
broadsides as they passed one another, but a few 
yards distant, in opposite directions, the Americans 
firing their lee, and the British their weather guns, 
as they bore. The contrast in the gunnery of the 
two crews was almost absurd. As the British were 
using the weather battery, the guns, unless some- 
what depressed, were sure to throw the shot high, 
and for this the crews made no allowance. Not a 
shot penetrated the Hornet's hull, the entire broad- 
side passing through the rigging. One of her men 
in the mizen-top was killed by a round shot, and two 
in the main-top were wounded ; 2 a few ropes were 

1 James, vi. 194 (ed. 1837). 

2 Xavy Departmental MSS., Logbook of Hornet, Wasp, and 
Argus, 1809-1813. 



Great Britain and the United States 85 

cut, the foremast was wounded, and some holes were 
made in the sails ; but her fighting efficiency was 
not impaired in the slightest degree. On the other 
hand, the Hornet's guns, being fired from the lee 
side of the ship, naturally shot low, and her men 
aimed as if at drill, almost every shot striking the 
Peacock's hull, while, inasmuch as the Peacock was 
heeled over, many of them struck below the water- 
line, making holes through which the water gushed 
in torrents as soon as the brig was again on an even 
keel. 

When the two vessels were clear, Captain Peake 
put his helm hard up and wore, firing his starboard 
guns ; but Lawrence had watched him closely, and 
himself bore up, and at 5.35 ran the Englishman 
close aboard on the starboard quarter. Another 
broadside, added to the musketry fire, did the busi- 
ness. Captain Peake fell; and at 5.39, 1 just four- 
teen minutes after the first shot, the Peacock 
surrendered. Immediately afterwards her mainmast 
went by the board, and she began to settle, hoisting 
her ensign union down as a signal of distress. Both 
vessels cast anchor ; and Lieutenant Shubrick, being 
sent on board the prize, reported her sinking. Lieu- 
tenant Connor was then sent in another boat to try 
to save the brig ; but though the captors threw the 
guns overboard, plugged the shot holes, and worked 
the pumps, the water gained so rapidly that the 

1 British accounts, and James, make the action to have lasted 
from 5.25 to 5.50 p. m. — W. L. C. 



86 Naval Operations of the War Between 

attempt was abandoned, and the Hornet's officers 
used what remained of the fading tropical twilight 
in removing the wounded and prisoners. Just as 
dark fell the brig suddenly sank, in water which 
was so shallow that her foretop remained above the 
surface. There was, of course, much confusion. 
Three of the Hornet's men and nine prisoners went 
down with the Peacock. Four other prisoners 
lowered the stern-boat and escaped unobserved to 
the land, while four more saved themselves by run- 
ning up the rigging into the foretop. Lieutenant 
Connor and the rest of the Hornet's men who were 
on board, and the remainder of the Peacock's crew, 
who had not been shifted, escaped by jumping into 
the launch which was lying on the booms, and 
paddling her towards the ship with pieces of boards. 
Seven of the Hornet's men and six of the Peacock's 
were on the sick list, leaving fit for action one hun- 
dred and thirty-five of the former, 1 and one hundred 
and twenty-two of the latter. 2 The Hornet carried 
twenty, and the Peacock nineteen 3 guns, each pre- 
senting ten in broadside ; but, as already mentioned, 
the Peacock's carronades were 24's, and the Hornet's 
32's. There was a very real disparity in force, but 
in this particular instance the disparity in force in 

1 Letter of Lieutenant Connor, April 26th, 1813. 

2 Letter of Lieutenant Frederick Augustus Wright, April 19th, 
1813. 

8 According to James, the Peacock mounted only sixteen 24-pr. 
carronades, and two long 6-prs., and had nine, not ten, guns in 
broadside. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 87 

no way affected the result. The Peacock's guns 
simply did not hit, so that their calibre was a matter 
of no possible consequence. The Hornet was hardly 
scratched, and lost but three men, all aloft ; while 
the Peacock was sunk in fourteen minutes, nearly 
one-third of her crew being killed or wounded. 1 She 
was bravely fought, but her gunnery was phenom- 
enally bad. It appears that she had long been 
known as "the yacht" on account of the tasteful 
arrangement of her deck. The breechings of the 
carronades were lined with white canvas, and noth- 
ing could exceed in brilliancy the polish upon the 
traversing bars and elevating screws. 2 Of course, a 
slovenly ship does not often make a good fight, for 
slovenliness is an indication of laziness, carelessness, 
and inefficiency ; but man — and above all the fight- 
ing man — shall not live by neatness alone, nor yet 
merely by precision in the performance of duties not 
connected with the actual shock of arms. Com- 
mander Peake had committed the not uncommon 
mistake of confounding the incidents and the 
essentials of discipline. 

Throughout the fight the Espiegle was but four 
miles distant, 3 and was plainly visible from the 

1 Of her crew of 122 men and boys, the Peacock had five killed, 
including Commander Peake, a Commander of January 21st, 1806, 
and 33 wounded, three mortally. — W. L. C. 

2 James, vi. 194 (ed. 1837). 

8 Upon this point there is, however, a conflict of evidence. Lieu- 
tenant Frederick Augustus Wright, of the Peacock, testified that the 
Espiegle " was not visible from the look-outs stationed at -the Pea- 



88 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Hornet ; but for some reason, which never was fully 
explained, her Commander did not observe anything, 
and knew nothing of the action until the next day. 
Lawrence, of course, took it for granted that he 
must know, and would shortly come out ; and, by 
nine o'clock in the evening, new sails had been bent 
on, and the decks cleared, so that the Hornet was 
again ready for action. She was then, however, 
overcrowded with people and short of water, and, 
as the Espiegle showed no signs of coming out, 1 the 
Hornet stood for home, which she reached in March. 
On their arrival at New York the officers of the 
Peacock published a card expressing their apprecia- 
tion of the way in which they and their men had 
been treated. The note ran in part, " We ceased to 
consider ourselves prisoners, and everything that 
friendship could dictate was adopted by you and 
the officers of the Hornet to remedy the inconven- 
ience we would otherwise have experienced from the 

cock's mastheads for some time previous to the commencement of 
the action." James, too, says (vi. 194, ed. 1837): " The wreck of 
the Peacock was visible for a long time after the action, and bore 
from Point Spirit, which is about six miles to the eastward of the 
entrance to Demerara river, N. E. by E.; making the distance 
between the Espiegle and Peacock, during the action, nearly 24 
miles." — W. L. C. 

1 Commander John Taylor (1), of the Espiegle, was tried at 
Portsmouth, in 1814, on various charges, and was, in consequence, 
dismissed the service ; but though the charges included a count of 
having failed in his duty when he was in pursuit of the Hornet, it 
was held that that particular charge was not proved. Commander 
Taylor was reinstated, as "the junior Commander," in 1817. (Mar- 
shall, iv., pt. iii. 537, and the Navy Lists.) — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 89 

unavoidable loss of the whole of our property and 
clothes owing to the sudden sinking of the Peacock." l 

So far the American navy had achieved success 
beyond what any one could have either hoped for or 
dreaded, and the British government had paid dearly 
for its contemptuous disregard of the power of the 
United States at sea. It was utterly unprepared 
for the skill and energy shown by the Americans. 
More ships of the line and frigates were gradually as- 
sembled on the American coast ; but, during the first 
eight months or thereabouts, no effective blockade 
was established, and the American cruisers slipped in 
and out as they wished. The British picked up a 
couple more American brigs, the Viper and the 
Vixen, 2 and captured many American merchantmen, 
but this was all. 

The offensive powers of the Americans were dis- 
played not merely in the use of their regular war- 
vessels, but in the careers of the privateers. The 
mere declaration of war with Great Britain meant 
the destruction for the moment of the major part of 
the foreign trade of America ; and the more daring 
spirits who had formerly gone into this trade at 
once turned to the business of privateering. The 

1 This and the other letters are given in full in ' Niles's Register ' 
for this and the following months. 

2 The Viper, 16, Lieut. J. D. Henby, was captured on January 
17th, 1813, by the Narcissus, 32, Capt. John Richard Lumley. The 
Vixen, 12, Lieut. Geo. U. Read, had been taken on the previous 
November 22nd, by the Southampton, 32, Capt. Sir James Lucas 
Yeo. — W. L. C. 



90 Naval Operations of the War Between 



American privateers swarmed out into the Atlantic, 
and especially round the West India Islands, the 
trade with which was at that period very profitable 
to England. At times, in the past, the French 
privateers had inflicted very great damage upon 
British trade, but the British men-of-war had so 
completely gained the upper hand of their adver- 
saries that very few French ships, public or private, 
were left at sea. The activity and success of the 
American privateers, therefore, took the British 
government and the British mercantile interest com- 
pletely by surprise. Hundreds of merchantmen 
were captured in the Atlantic, and in the West 
Indies the privateers cut vessels out of harbors 
protected by batteries, and landed to plunder the 
plantations. The island of Jamaica was for some 
time practically blockaded by them. At first the 
British warships could do little with them ; and the 
merchants cried out bitterly because of the failure 
to protect them. 

As rapidly as possible the British naval author- 
ities gathered the swiftest frigates and sloops to 
employ against these cruisers ; and there resulted a 
process of natural selection so severe that the type 
of privateer soon became altered. At the outset 
almost any craft was used ; but before the first year 
of the war had closed all the small and slow vessels 
were captured or shut up in port, and a peculiar 
species of craft was developed. She was of large 
size, with a numerous crew, so as to man the prizes, 



Great Britain and the United States 91 

and was armed with one heavy gun, or " long torn," 
and several lighter pieces for use at close quarters. 
She was sometimes a schooner, and sometimes a 
brig or a ship, but always built on fine lines, and 
with extreme lightness, so as to possess astonishing 
speed. There were no more beautiful craft in ex- 
istence than these graceful, venomous, swift-sailing 
privateers; and as commerce destroyers they had 
not then their equals in the entire world. 1 

The first nine months of the war ended with the 
balance entirely in favour of the Americans. Even 
at the outbreak of hostilities the British had, scat- 
tered along the American coast and among the West 
India Islands, three or four times as many ships as 
there were in the American navy, and to those there 
had been added many others, including heavy two- 
deckers ; but they had not settled down to any 
definite plan for seriously interfering with the cruises 
of the regular warships, or for sweeping the priva- 
teers from the seas. The American trade had suffered 
severely ; but so had the British. Infinitely more 
important, however, than such material suffering, 
short of actual crippling, were the shame and smart 
felt by the British public at the American naval 
victories. Commerce destroying was annoying and 
vexatious, and it might prove sufficiently serious to 

1 Adams, vols. vii. and viii.,has treated better than any other 
historian the careers and importance of the privateers. If he could 
have seen Mahan's book before writing his own, he would doubtless 
have laid more stress on the unsatisfactory results of trying to 
substitute commerce destroyers for fighting ships. 



92 Naval Operations of the War Between 

incline an already disheartened combatant to peace ; 
but no amount of destruction of commerce could 
cripple a thoroughly resolute antagonist, nor, giving 
heart to the nation which inflicted the loss, make it 
thrill with that warlike pride and determination to 
conquer which do so much toward winning victory. 
The two prime objects to be attained in successful 
warfare are to cripple the antagonist and to give 
heart and confidence to one's own side. The first 
object could not be attained by the little American 
navy, for it was powerless to inflict appreciable 
damage to the colossal sea might of England ; but 
the second object it could and did achieve. On land 
the American attempts to invade Canada resulted 
in humiliating disasters, and the effects of the vic- 
torious sea fights were very great in offsetting the 
mortification and depression which those disasters 
caused. 

In England the sea fights caused as much excite- 
ment as in America, though of a wholly different 
kind. Neither the British government nor the 
British people, and least of all the British Navy, 
had dreamed it possible that on sea they would 
suffer any serious annoyance from America. The 
prowess of the American frigates and sloops, the 
hawk-like predatory speed of the American priva- 
teers, and the energy displayed by men-of-warsmen 
and privateersmen alike, were so many disagreeable 
surprises. The material loss to the merchants was 
heavy, whereas the material loss to the navy was 



Great Britain and the United States 93 

trifling, so far as affecting Great Britain's naval 
strength was concerned. Nevertheless, it was this 
last loss which infinitely outweighed the other, as 
was inevitable and proper with a proud, self-confident, 
and warlike nation. In seven months Great Britain 
had suffered from the infant navy of the United 
States, in five single-ship contests, severer moral 
loss than she had suffered in all the single-ship con- 
tests of the preceding twenty years' warfare with 
the nations of Europe. 

Such a result was almost paralysing, and naturally 
produced inordinate boastfulness and self-exaltation 
on the one side, and bitter shame and anger on the 
other. The victors, the greater to exalt their glory, 
sought to minimise the difference of force in their 
favour, and insisted that the contending ships were 
practically on an equality; which was not only 
absurdly untrue, but a discredit to their own intelli- 
gence, for, of course, it was highly to the credit of 
America to have built ships more efficient than any 
then afloat. The vanquished, to extenuate their 
defeats, attributed them entirely to the difference in 
force, and enormously exaggerated this, crying out 
that the American 44's were " disguised 74's," and 
that building them was a characteristic piece of 
" Yankee cunning " to lure brave British captains into 
unequal combat. The attention paid in Parliament 
and in the London press to these victories was a 
sufficient tribute to their importance. The Times, 
smarting under the need to lay stress upon a differ- 



94 Naval Operations of the War Between 

ence in force which British seamen had been 
accustomed to disregard, wrote, 

" Good God ! that a few short months should have so 
altered the tone of British sentiment ! Is it true, or is it 
not, that our Navy was accustomed to hold the American 
in utter contempt ? Is it true, or is it not, that the 
Guerriere sailed up and down the American coast with her 
name painted in large characters on her sails, in boyish 
defiance of Commodore Rodgers ? " 

Eighty-five British ships were on the American 
station at the beginning of hostilities. 

" "We have since sent out more line-of-battle ships and 
heavier frigates. Surely we must now mean to smother the 
American Navy. A very short time before the capture 
of the Guerriere, an American frigate was an object of 
ridicule to our honest tars. Now the prejudice is actually 
setting the other way, and great pains seem to be taken by 
the friends of ministers to prepare the public for the sur- 
render of a British 74 to an opponent lately so much 
contemned." 

The Pilot, the chief maritime authority, gave full 
expression to the feelings with which the British 
public generally regarded these events : — 

" The public will learn, with sentiments which we shall 
not presume to anticipate, that a third British frigate has 
struck to an American. This is an occurrence which calls 
for serious reflection — this, and the fact stated in one paper 
of yesterday, that Lloyd's List contains notice of upwards of 
five hundred British vessels captured in seven months by 
the Americans, five hundred merchantmen, and three 
frigates ! Can these statements be true, and can the 



Great Britain and the United States 95 

English people hear them unmoved? Any one who had 
predicted such a result of an American war this time last 
year would have been treated as a madman or a traitor. 
He would have been told, if his opponents had condescended 
to argue with him, that long ere seven months had elapsed 
the American rlag would be swept from the seas, the 
contemptible navy of the United States annihilated, and 
their maritime arsenals rendered a heap of ruins. Yet 
down to this moment not a single American frigate has 
struck her flag. They insult and laugh at our want of 
enterprise and vigour. They leave their ports when they 
please, and return to them when it suits their convenience ; 
they traverse the Atlantic ; they beset the West India 
Islands ; they advance to the very chops of the Channel ; 
they parade along the coasts of South America ; nothing 
chases, nothing intercepts, nothing engages them but to 
yield them triumph." 

Canning, in open Parliament, expressed the bitter 
anger felt by the whole governing class. He stated 
that the loss of the frigates had affected the country 
as it could be affected only by the most violent 
convulsions of nature, and he returned to the subject 
again and again, saying " It never entered into my 
mind that the mighty naval power of England 
would be allowed to sit idle while our commerce 
was swept from the surface of the Atlantic." And 
again, " It cannot be too deeply felt that the sacred 
spell of the invincibility of the British Navy was 
broken by these unfortunate captures." 

Most significant of all was the fact that the 
Admiralty issued an order forbidding the 18-pounder 



9 6 Naval Operations of the War Between 



frigates thereafter to do battle with the American 
24-pounder frigates. This was not a confession of 
inferiority, as has been said by some American 
writers ; but it was distinctly a renunciation of any 
claim of superiority. The American 44 was no more 
superior to the British 38-gun frigate than the 
French 74 was to the English 74, for the main-deck 
battery of the French two-decker carried a gun 
which threw a shot weighing forty-three English 
pounds, whereas the main-deck guns of the British 
ships of the line were only 32's. The difference, 
therefore, was greater in favour of the French ships 
of the line, as compared with their British opponents, 
than the difference between the victor and the van- 
quished in the famous single-ship duels of 1812. 
The victories of Nelson and Jervis had been gained 
against odds much greater than those encountered 
by the frigates which succumbed to the Constitution 
and the United States. Time and again, moreover, 
the British had won against odds as great, or greater, 
in single combat. The French 18-pounder gun 
threw a shot weighing twenty-one pounds English ; 
whereas, owing to the short weight of the American 
shot, the American 24-pounder usually threw but a 
little over twenty-two; so that, as compared with 
the old opponents whom the British frigate captains 
had so often vanquished, their new American foes 
threw but one and one-half pound more metal from 
each gun of the main battery. 

The difference in the size and stoutness of the 



Great Britain and the United States 97 

ships, in the numbers of the crews, and in the calibre 
of the guns accounted for much in the result, but it 
by no means accounted for all ; and in the two 
sloop actions it was of little or no moment. The 
other element, which entered quite as decisively into 
the contest, was the superior efficiency of the 
Americans, especially in gunnery. The British had 
grown over-confident and careless. They had 
learned to lean overmuch upon what Canning called 
" the sacred spell of the invincibility of the British 
Navy," and they needed to learn the lesson that 
this sacred spell can always be readily broken by any 
opponent who, with equal courage, shows superiority 
in skill, and especially in cool forethought and 
preparation. Superiority in courage and skill com- 
bined can wrest victory from great odds, and no 
amount of skill will atone for the lack of daring, 
of unflinching resolution, and of dogged capacity to 
stand punishment ; but where courage is equal, skill 
will always win ; and where courage and skill are 
both equal, then the side which has the best ships 
and guns will overwhelm the other, no matter what 
may be the flags under which the combatants fight. 
The best commentary on the five victories thus 
far described is that given by the French Admiral, 
Jurien de La Graviere : and it is significant of the 
profound impression they created that, in a work 
devoted to the gigantic naval battles of the fleets 
that fought under and against Nelson, a French 
admiral, to whom the contest between the British 



98 Naval Operations of the War Between 

and the Americans had no other interest than the 
lesson it taught, should have devoted so much space 
to these duels, singling them out above all the other 
single-ship contests of the twenty-five years' war. 

" When the American Congress declared war on England 
in 1812," he says, 1 "it seemed as if this unequal conflict 
would crush her navy in the act of being born ; instead, it 
but fertilised the germ. It is only since that epoch that 
the United States has taken rank among maritime powers. 
Some combats of frigates, corvettes, and brigs, insignificant 
without doubt as regards the material results, sufficed to 
break the charm which protected the standard of St. George, 
and taught Europe what she could have already learned 
from some of our combats, if the louder noise of our defeats 
had not drowned the glory, that the only invincibles on the 
sea are good seamen and good artillerists. 

" The English covered the ocean with their cruisers when 
this unknown navy, composed of six frigates and a few 
small craft hitherto hardly numbered, dared to establish its 
cruisers at the mouth of the Channel, in the very centre of 
the British power. But already the Constitution had cap- 
tured the Guerriere and Java, the United States had made 
a prize of the Macedonian, the Wasp of the Frolic, and the 
Hornet of the Peacock. The honour of the new flag was 
established. England, humiliated, tried to attribute her 
multiplied reverses to the unusual size of the vessels which 
Congress had had constructed in 1799, and which did the 
fighting in 1812. She wished to refuse them the name 
of frigates, and called them, not without some appearance 
of reason, disguised line-of-battle ships. Since then all 
maritime powers have copied these gigantic models, as the 

1 'Guerres Maritiraes,' ii. 284 (edition of 1881). 



Great Britain and the United States 99 

result of the war of 1812 obliged England herself to change 
her naval material ; but if they had employed, instead of 
frigates, cut-down 74's, it would still be difficult to explain 
the prodigious success of the Americans. . . . 

" In an engagement which terminated in less than half an 
hour, the English frigate Guerriere, completely dismasted, 
had fifteen men killed, sixty-three wounded, and more than 
thirty shot below the water-line. She sank twelve hours 
after the combat. The Constitution, on the contrary, had 
but seven men killed and seven wounded, and did not lose 
a mast. As soon as she had replaced a few cut ropes and 
changed a few sails, she was in condition, even by the 
testimony of the British historian, to take another Guerriere. 
The United States took an hour and a half to recapture the 
Macedonian, and the same difference made itself felt in 
the damage suffered by the two ships. The Macedonian 
had her masts shattered, two of her main-deck and all her 
spar-deck guns disabled, more than a hundred shots had 
penetrated the hull, and over a third of the crew had 
suffered by the hostile fire. The American frigate, on the 
contrary, had to regret but five men killed and seven 
wounded ; her guns had been fired each sixty-six times to 
the Macedonian's thirty- six. The combat of the Constitution 
and the Java lasted two hours ; and was the most bloody of 
these three engagements. The Java only struck when she 
had been razed like a sheer hulk ; she had twenty-two men 
killed and one hundred and two wounded. 



"This war should be studied with unceasing diligence; 
the pride of the two peoples to whom naval affairs are so 
generally familiar has cleared all the details and laid bare 
all the episodes ; and through the sneers which the victors 
should have spared, merely out of care for their own glory, 

Lore. 



ioo Naval Operations of the War Between 

at every step can be seen the great truth, that there is only 
success for those who know how to prepare it. 

" It belongs to us to judge impartially these marine events, 
too much exalted perhaps by a national vanity one is 
tempted to excuse. The Americans showed in the war of 
1812 a great deal of skill and resolution ; but if, as they have 
asserted, the chances had always been perfectly equal 
between them and their adversaries, if they had only owed 
their triumphs to the intrepidity of Hull, Decatur, and 
Bainbridge, there would be for us but little interest in 
recalling the struggle. We need not seek lessons in courage 
outside of our own history. On the contrary, what is to 
be well considered is that the ships of the United States 
constantly fought with the chances in their favour, and it is 
on this that the American Government should found its 
true title to glory. . . . The Americans in 1812 had secured 
to themselves the advantage of a better organisation (than 
the English)." 

After speaking of the heavier metal and greater 
number of men of the American ships, he 
continues : — 

" And yet only an enormous superiority in the precision 
and rapidity of their fire can explain the difference in the 
losses sustained by the combatants. 

" The American fire showed itself to be as accurate as it 
was rapid. On occasions when the roughness of the sea 
would seem to render all aim excessively uncertain, the 
effects of their artillery were not less murderous than under 
more advantageous conditions. 

" Nor was the skill of their gunners the only cause to 
which the Americans owed their success. Their ships were 



Great Britain and the United States 101 

faster ; the crews, composed of chosen men, manoeuvred 
with uniformity and precision ; their captains had that 
practical knowledge which is only to be acquired by long 
experience of the sea ; and it is not to be wondered at that 
the Constitution, when chased during three days by a 
squadron of five English frigates, succeeded in escaping, by 
surpassing them in manoeuvring and by availing herself of 
every ingenious resource and skilful expedient that mari- 
time science could suggest. ... To a marine exalted by 
success, but rendered negligent by the very habit of victory, 
the Congress only opposed the best of vessels and most 
formidable of armaments." 



THE TURN OF THE TIDE 

HP HE American coast blockaded — Effect of the blockade — Raids 
**• on the coast — Retaliation by the privateers — Failure of ex- 
pectations on both sides — Fleets the true commerce-destroyers — 
The SJiannon and the Chesapeake — The power of good organisation 
— The Pelican and the Argus — The Enterprise and the Boxer — 
Failure of the attack on Norfolk — Outrages at Hampton — Inade- 
quacy of the American gunboats — The Junon in Delaware Bay — 
Attack on the Asp — Capture of the Surveyor — Affair in the Stone 
River — Capture of the Lottery — Polkinghorne and the privateers — 
Cochrane succeeds Warren — Cruise of the Essex — The Phoebe and 
Cherub, and the Essex and Essex Junior. 

THROUGHOUT the year 1812, and the be- 
ginning of the year 1813, Britain had made 
no effective use whatever of her tremendous 
power at sea, so far as the United States was con- 
cerned. She had suffered from overweening self- 
confidence in her own prowess, and from overween- 
ing contempt for her foe. During the first year of 
war the utter futility of the American land attacks 
on Canada could fairly be matched by the utter 
inefficiency of the efforts of the British both to 
destroy the little American navy, and to employ 
their own huge Navy so as to make it a determin- 
ing factor in the struggle. But by the spring of 
1813 this was changed. The British were a prac- 
tical people, and they faced facts — thereby showing 
capacity to turn these facts to their own advan- 



Naval Operations 103 



tage. The dream of British naval invincibility, 
the dream that the British warships could win 
against any reasonable odds, was a pleasant dream, 
and the awakening was extremely disagreeable. 
Nevertheless, a dream it was, and the British 
recognised it as such, and acted accordingly, with 
the natural result that thereafter the Americans 
suffered more than the British at sea. The 18- 
pounder frigates were forbidden to engage single- 
handed the 24-pounder frigates of the Americans, 1 
and where possible they were directed to cruise in 
couples, or in small squadrons, so as to be able with 
certainty to overpower any single antagonist, great 
or small. No sufficient steps were taken to bring 
the average standard of fighting efficiency, especially 
in gunnery, up to the American levels and in con- 
sequence there were some defeats yet in store ; but 
the best captains in the British Navy were already as 
good as any to be found in America, or anywhere else, 
and it was now the turn of the Americans to suffer 
from over-confidence, while the British, wherever 
possible, made dexterous use of their superior forces. 
After this period no British frigate was captured, 
while three American frigates surrendered, one to 
an opponent of superior fighting efficiency, and the 
other two to superior force, skilfully used. The 
American sloops did better, but even their career was 
chequered by defeat. 

1 The order recites that they are " forbidden to engage " and are 
to " retreat " from such a foe. — ' The Croker Papers,' i. 44. 



104 Naval Operations of the War Between 

The important factor on the British side was the 
use of the Navy to blockade the American coast. 
When war was declared, the Napoleonic struggle 
was at its height, and the chances seemed on the 
whole to favour Napoleon. But, by the spring of 
1813, the Grand Army had gone to its death in the 
snowclad wastes of Russia, and Wellington had 
completely bested the French marshals in Spain, so 
that it was merely a question of time as to when he 
would invade France. In Germany the French were 
steadily losing ground ; and all the nations of 
Europe were combining, for the overthrow of that 
splendid, evil, and terrible genius before whom they 
had so long cowered. Britain could, therefore, 
afford to turn her attention to America in earnest. 
As yet she could not spare adequate land forces, but 
she could and did spare a sufficiency of battleships, 
frigates, and sloops to make a real blockade of the 
American coast. After May 1813 the blockade was 
complete from New York southward. In the 
autumn it was extended further east ; but it was 
not until the following year that it was applied with 
the same iron severity to the New England coast, 
for the British government hoped always that the 
seditious spirit in New England would manifest 
itself in open revolt. 

After the blockade had been once established, 
commerce ceased; and the only vessels that could 
slip out were the fast-sailing privateers and regular 
cruisers, whose captains combined daring, caution, 



Great Britain and the United States 105 



and skill in such equal proportions as to enable 
them to thread their way through the innumerable 
dangers that barred the path. The privateers 
frequently failed, and even the regular cruisers were 
by no means always successful; while the risks 
were too great for merchantmen habitually to en- 
counter them. Georgia touched Florida, and so 
could do a little trade through the Spanish 
dominions ; and the northern New England coast 
lay open for some time to come ; but elsewhere the 
ships rotted at the ports, though the shipwrights 
found employment in building the swift privateers, 
and the sailor-folk in manning them. 

The white-sailed British frigates hovered in front 
of every seaport of note, standing on and off with 
ceaseless, unwearying vigilance by day and night, 
in fair weather and foul, through the summer and 
through the winter. In the great estuaries fleets 
rode at anchor, or sailed hither and thither menacing 
destruction. No town, large or small, could deem 
itself safe ; and every great river was a possible 
highroad for the entrance of the enemy. There was 
not a strip of the American coast over which the 
Americans could call themselves masters, seaward 
of the point where the water grew deep enough to 
float a light craft of war. 

The one lesson which should be most clearly 
taught by this war is the folly of a nation's relying 
for safety upon anything but its own readiness to 
repel attack ; and, in the case of a power with an 



106 Naval Operations of the War Between 

extended seaboard, this readiness implies the pos- 
session of a great fighting navy. The utter failure 
of Jefferson's embargo and his other measures of 
what he termed "peaceable coercion," teach their 
part of the lesson so plainly that it would seem im- 
possible to misread it ; but the glory won by their 
little navy has tended to blind Americans to the fact 
that this navy was too small to do anything except 
win glory. It lacked the power to harm anything 
but Britain's pride, and it was too weak to parry a 
single blow delivered by the British along the coast, 
when once they realised that their task was serious, 
and set about it in earnest. Twenty ships-of-the- 
line, as good of their kind as were the frigates and 
sloops, would have rendered the blockade impossible, 
even if they had not prevented the war ; and, judged 
merely from the monetary standpoint, they would 
have repaid to the nation their cost a thousand 
times over by the commerce they would have saved, 
and the business losses they would have averted. 
As it was, the Americans were utterly powerless to 
offer any effective resistance to the British blockade ; 
for it is too late to try to build a fleet, or take any 
other effective steps, when once the war has begun. 
The nerveless administration at Washington did not 
even take steps to defend the capital city. 

It is the fashion to speak of the people as misrep- 
resented by the politicians ; but in this case certainly 
the people deserved just the government they had. 
Indeed, it is curious and instructive as well as mel- 



Great Britain and the United States i 07 

ancholy to see how powerless the Americans as a 
whole were to make good the shortcomings of which 
they had been guilty prior to the declaration of war. 
It is especially instructive for those Americans, and 
indeed those Englishmen, who are fond of saying 
that either country needs no protection merely because 
it cannot be directly invaded by land, and who try to 
teach us that the immense reserve strength which 
each nation undoubtedly possesses can be immedi- 
ately drawn on to make good any deficiencies in 
preparation at the outbreak of a war. This is much 
like telling a prize-fighter that he need not train 
because he has such an excellent constitution that 
he may draw on it to make good defects in his 
preparation for the ring. The truth seems to be 
that, in naval matters especially, nothing can supply 
the lack of adequate preparation and training before 
the outbreak of war. The lead which is lost at the 
beginning cannot be regained save by superhuman 
effort, and after enormous waste of strength. It is 
too late to mature plans for defence when the enemy 
is close at hand, for he continually breaks up and 
renders abortive the various little movements which, 
if given time, would become formidable. There is 
more chance of remedying defective preparation on 
land than on sea, merely because the fighting ma- 
chinery for use on the sea is so delicate and compli- 
cated that ample opportunity must be given, not 
merely to produce it, but to learn to use it aright. 
This was true in the clays of the American and 



io8 Naval Operations of the War Between 



French revolutions ; it is infinitely truer now, when 
the fleets of Rodney and Nelson have been left as 
far behind modern navies as they stood ahead of the 
galleys of Alcibiades and Hanno. 

The failure of the Americans to devise any ade- 
quate measure for breaking the British blockade is 
partially due to this fundamental difficulty in making 
preparations when the time for preparation has 
passed. There was also a curious supineness among 
the people as a whole, which was, if anything, even 
more noticeable among those States which were 
clamorous for war than among those which, to their 
deep discredit, clamoured for peace. Virginia and 
the Southern States did not falter in their deter- 
mination to continue the war, and the New England 
States betrayed an utter lack of patriotism in their 
councils, and greatly hampered the national govern- 
ment in its feeble efforts to uphold the national 
honour. Nevertheless, astounding to relate, the 
New England States actually did more than the 
South Atlantic States in the war itself, and this, not 
because they did so much, but because the South 
Atlantic States did so little. Massachusetts and 
Virginia were the typical States of their two sections, 
and Massachusetts gave more men and more money 
to carry on the war than did Virginia, apart from 
furnishing a very large proportion of the sailors 
who manned the war ships and privateers, while 
Virginia furnished hardly any. Not even the con- 
tinual presence of the British at their very doors 



Great Britain and the United States 109 

could rouse the Virginians to respectable resistance ; 
and the Marylanders were not much better. It was 
in the Chesapeake that the main part of the block- 
ading fleet lay ; it was along the shores of that great 
bay that the ravages of the British were most 
severely felt ; yet the Virginians and Marylanders, 
during the two years when the enemy lay on their 
coasts, insulting them at will, never organised any 
attack whatsoever upon them, and took inadequate 
and imperfect measures even for defence. The truth 
seems to be that the nation was yet in the gristle, 
and that its awkward strength was useless, as it 
could not be concentrated or applied to any one 
object. There was no public training, and indeed 
no public feeling, which could put at the disposal of 
the national government large bodies of disciplined 
men sufficient for effective use to a given end ; and 
the men in control of the national government had 
been bred in a political school which on its adminis- 
trative side was so silly that they could not have 
used this power even had it been given them. New 
York and Philadelphia were never directly menaced 
during the war; but once or twice they thought 
they were, and the way in which they proposed to 
meet the danger was by setting the citizens to labour 
on earthworks in the neighbourhood, each profession, 
trade, or association going out in a body on some 
one day — the lawyers on one day, the butchers on 
another, the United Irishmen on another, and so on, 
and so on. This conception of the way to perform 



iio Naval Operations of the War Between 

military duty does not require comment; it would 
be grossly unfair to compare it with the attitude 
even of unwarlike mediaeval burghers, for, after all, 
the mediaeval burghers had some idea of arms, and 
the shopkeepers, day-labourers, and professional 
men of New York and Philadelphia had not. 

Where such was the conception of how to carry 
on the war, there is small cause for wonder that the 
war was allowed to carry on itself pretty much as it 
pleased. Had the people displayed the energy, the 
resolution, and the efficiency which their descendants 
on both sides showed half a century later in the 
Civil War, no amount of courage or of military 
sagacity on the part of the British could have pro- 
longed the contest for any length of time. But 
there was no such showing. No concerted or reso- 
lute effort was made by the people as a whole. 
Individual shipbuilders and contractors showed 
great energy and capacity. Individual ship-captains 
at sea, individual generals on land, did remarkably 
well, showing military aptitude of a high order : and 
every such commander, by sea or by land, was able 
to make the seamen or the troops under him formid- 
able and well-disciplined fighters in an astonishingly 
short space of time ; for the Americans, whether 
afloat or on shore, were cool, hardy, resolute, and 
fertile in resources and expedients. But no com- 
mander ever had more than a small squadron or a 
diminutive army with which to work, for the great 
mass of the Americans did nothing to bring the war 






Great Britain and the United States i i i 



to a close. The task about which the people as a 
whole refused seriously to concern themselves, and 
which the government lacked decision and charac- 
ter to perform, was left to the shipwrights, to the 
seafaring folk, to the admirably trained officers of 
the little regular navy, and, on shore, to such com- 
manders and troops as the campaigns themselves 
gradually developed : and all acted more or less 
independently of one another, or with only such 
concert as their own intelligence demanded. 

The pressure brought to bear on America by the 
British blockade was exceedingly effective, but it 
was silent, and so historians have tended to forget 
it. They have chronicled with pride or regret 
according to their nationality, the capture of an 
occasional British by an American sloop, but they 
have paid little heed to, the ceaseless strain on the 
American resources caused by the blockade. Its 
mere existence inflicted a direct material loss to the 
American people a hundredfold greater than the 
entire American navy was able to inflict on Great 
Britain from the beginning to the end of its gallant 
career in this war. The very fact that the workings 
of the blockade were ceaseless and almost universal 
makes it difficult to realise their importance. It 
told heavily against the coasting trade, though less 
heavily than against foreign commerce ; and it 
revived an almost archaic industry, that of the wag- 
goners, who travelled slowly, parallel with the coast- 
line, to carry with an infinitely greater labour and 



1 1 2 Naval Operations of the War Between 

expense the goods that had formerly gone in the 
sloops and schooners. The return to this primitive 
method of interchange implied much of the suffering 
of primitive times, for it meant that one part of the 
country might lack the necessaries of which another 
part possessed an over-abundance. As soon as the 
blockade was established it created the widest 
inequalities in the prices of commodities in different 
parts of the country. 1 Flour cost nearly three times 
as much in Boston as in Richmond, and rice four 
times as much in Philadelphia as in Charleston, 
while imported articles like sugar rose fivefold in 
price. Exports practically ceased by the close of 
1813. In that year they amounted to but two hun- 
dred thousand dollars in New York as against over 
twelve million in the year preceding the outbreak of 
the war, while, during the same period, Virginia's 
original exports of five million dollars fell off to 
twenty thousand. The import duties diminished 
with even greater rapidity, until finally they could 
only be raised in New England. The ruin was 
widespread. As yet the people of the United States 
were not manufacturers, but small farmers, traders, 
and seafarers. The trader of the towns saw all his 
trade destroyed, and could give no employment to 
the sailors who had formerly worked for him ; while 
the farmer grew crops which could not be moved to 
any remunerative market, so that no ready money 
came in to him; and yet for whatever he needed, 

1 Adams, vii. 263. 



Great Britain and the United States 1 1 3 

save what he himself produced, he had to pay five 
times as much as formerly. 

The coast dwellers in Virginia and Maryland were 
forced to experience, not merely the weight of the 
blockade, but also actual physical contact with the 
enemy. Another British squadron lay in the Dela- 
ware, and forays were made here and there along 
the coast. New York was blockaded, but very little 
was done save to put a stop to commerce. There 
was another squadron at Nantucket, with Sir Thomas 
Masterman Hardy, Nelson's flag-captain, as commo- 
dore. Hardy's ships closed southern New England 
to the world, but they did very little in the way of 
attacking or harassing the coast itself, for Hardy, 
one of the most gallant captains who ever lived, a 
man who had won his spurs in the greatest sea fights 
of all time, and who prided himself on his ability to 
meet armed foes in battle, felt impatient at mere 
marauding, and countenanced it with reluctance. 

The directly opposite policy was pursued in Ches- 
apeake Bay. There Admiral Sir John Borlase 
Warren was in command, but the chief work was 
done by Rear- Admiral Sir George Cockburn. Cock- 
burn organised a few of the lightest ships of 
Warren's fleet, and some captured schooners, into 
a flotilla with which he could penetrate at will the 
creeks and rivers. He was a capable, brave, ener- 
getic man, hating his foes and enjoying his work ; 
and he carried out with scrupulous fidelity the order 
to harass the American coast. Not merely did he 

8 



114 Naval Operations of the War Between 

attack any militia that might from time to time 
assemble, but he also destroyed towns and hamlets, 
and worked widespread havoc throughout the coun- 
try that lay within striking distance of tide-water. 
Houses were burned, farms plundered, stores pillaged, 
and small towns destroyed, while the larger places, 
and even Baltimore, were thrown into a panic which 
caused the inhabitants to neglect their business, but 
did not cause them to take such efficient measures 
for self-defence as the exercise of reasonable fore- 
thought would have demanded. Usually Cockburn 
and his followers refrained from maltreating the 
people personally, and most of the destruction they 
caused was at places where the militia made some 
resistance ; but, when plundering once began, it was 
quite impossible for the officers to restrain some of 
the very men who most needed restraint. 

The people were of course greatly exasperated at 
the marauding, and the American newspapers far 
and near, and most American writers then and after- 
wards, were loud in their denunciation of the Bear- 
Admiral and his methods. Exactly how far these 
were or were not defensible, it is difficult to say. 
It is, of course, a mere matter of convention to dis- 
criminate between the destruction of private property 
on sea and land. Armed vessels, British and Ameri- 
can, destroyed or captured any private property of 
the enemy which they could find afloat ; and if there 
were sufficient cause, or if there were an object of 
sufficient importance to be attained, the combatants 



Great Britain and the United States 115 

were certainly warranted in destroying such property 
ashore. Cockburn's course was in many respects 
the same as that of Sheridan's at one crisis in the 
Civil War; and there was certainly little in it to 
warrant the warmth of the execrations heaped upon 
him by his foes — which were indeed somewhat in 
the nature of a tribute to his efficiency. At the 
same time it may be admitted that his work was 
not of the kind in which the best type of fighting 
man would find any pleasure, or which he would 
carry on longer than was absolutely necessary ; and 
for some of the revolting details there was small 
excuse. There is room for question as to whether 
the comparatively trifling loss inflicted on the 
Americans did much beyond irritating them. It 
certainly failed to cow them, though equally cer- 
tainly it failed to rouse them to effective resistance. 
In short, it may be doubted whether the course 
followed by Cockburn reflected any particular credit 
upon, or caused much, if any, benefit to, the British 
side. There can be no doubt, however, of the dis- 
credit attaching to the Americans for their conduct. 
A people which lets its shores be insulted with im- 
punity incurs, if not greater blame, at least greater 
contempt, than the people which does the plunder- 
ing. If here and there Cockburn burned a hamlet 
or two which he ought to have spared, his offence 
was really small when compared with the disgrace 
brought on the American name b} r the supineness 
shown by the people of the threatened neighbour- 



1 1 6 Naval Operations of the War Between 

hoods. They did nothing effectively of any kind for 
their own defence. Indeed, for the most part they did 
nothing at all, except gather bodies of militia when- 
ever there was an alarm, and so keep the inhabitants 
constantly worried and harassed by always calling 
them to arms, and yet merely providing almost 
worthless defenders. And the nation as a whole 
was as much to blame as the States directly 
menaced. 

The retaliation of the Americans took the form 
of privateering. By the time the blockade began to 
be effective, the American privateers had developed 
into a well-recognised type. Small vessels had been 
abandoned. Brigs and ships were common, and so 
were schooners of large size. Everything was sacri- 
ficed to speed ; and the chief feature of the arma- 
ment was the single long-range gun, fitted to 
bring-to a fleeing merchantman at a considerable 
distance. The privateers thus had neither the arma- 
ment nor the build, not to speak of the discipline, 
which would have enabled them to withstand regular 
men-of-war of the same size in close action, although 
the crews were large, the better to man the prizes. 
In other words, the privateer was a commerce de- 
stroyer pure and simple, built to run and not to 
fight ; although, even as a commerce destroyer, she 
was less effective than a government vessel would 
be, because she was built to make money in a par- 
ticularly risky species of gambling; and so, instead 
of destroying prizes, she sought to send them in, 



Great Britain and the United States 1 17 

with the result that nearly half were recaptured 
when once the British began to make their blockade 
effective. A good many privateers went out from 
the ports of the Southern States, and Baltimore 
was a famous centre for them ; but the great 
majority sailed from the New England and Middle 
States. 

The ravages of these privateers were very serious. 1 
The British trade suffered heavily from them, much 
more than from the closing of the American ports 
— the argument upon which Jefferson had placed 
so much reliance in his vain effort to bring Britain 
to terms. In fact, the closing of the American ports 
by the war made comparatively little difference to 
England, because it was almost immediately accom- 
panied by the opening of the trade with continental 
Europe. The crushing disasters that befell Napo- 
leon's great army in Russia meant the immediate 
relaxation of his system in the Baltic ; and after he 
was driven out of Germany, toward the close of 
1813, all the German ports were again thrown open 
to the British merchants, so that their trade grew 
by leaps and bounds, and the loss of the American 
market was far more than made good by the gain 
of markets elsewhere. After the overthrow of 
France, in the spring of 1814, England was left 

1 Adams, in his ' History,' gives the best account both of the 
blockade and the privateers. The details of some of the voyages of 
the latter are preserved in Coggeshall's ' History of American 
Privateers.' 



1 1 8 Naval Operations of the War Between 

without an enemy, excepting the United States, and 
her commerce went where it pleased, unharmed 
except by the American privateers. 

When she was thus left free to use her vast 
strength solely against America, it seemed inevitable 
that the latter should be overthrown. But, in the 
war of 1812, what seemed probable rarely came to 
pass ; and the failures on both sides caused the 
utmost astonishment at the time, and are difficult to 
fully explain now. At the outbreak of the war the 
general opinion in America was that Canada would 
speedily be conquered ; and the general opinion in 
Europe was that the United States' navy would be 
brushed from the sea, and that the American pri- 
vateers would be got under just as those of France 
had been got under. Neither expectation was ful- 
filled. During the first two years the Americans 
made no headway in the effort to conquer feebly- 
held Canada. When, in 1814, Britain turned her 
undivided attention to an enemy which with one 
hand she had held at bay for two years, the inevit- 
able outcome seemed to be her triumph ; yet she in 
her turn failed in her aggressive movements against 
the United States just as America had failed in her 
aggressive movements against Canada, and her giant 
Navy proved unequal to the task of scourging from 
the seas the American men-of-war and privateers. 
Contrary to her experience in all former wars with 
European powers, she found that the American 
privateers were able to operate far from their base, 



Great Britain and the United States i 1 9 

and to do great damage without any great fighting 
navy to back them up ; and as the war progressed 
they grew ever bolder in their ravages round the 
coasts of the British Isles themselves. 

There are two lessons, which at first sight seem 
contradictory, to be learned from the history of the 
privateers in this war. In the first place, their his- 
tory does teach that very much can be accomplished 
by commerce destroying, if more directly efficient 
methods cannot be used. The American privateers 
rendered invaluable service to their country by their 
daring, and the severity of their ravages. In those 
days sailing vessels were not hampered as vessels 
would be hampered under like conditions in the 
days of steam ; they did not need coaling stations, 
and there was much less danger of their getting out 
of repair. The American privateer was a faster 
ship than any previously seen on the waters, and 
she was more daringly and skilfully handled than 
any ships of her kind had ever been handled by 
Europeans. She could usually overtake any mer- 
chantman, and usually escape any man-of-war. Of 
course, in the end she was almost certain to encounter 
some man-of-war from whom she could not escape ; 
but this might not be until after several profitable 
voyages ; and though, on the average, privateering 
was a business in which the losses equalled the gains, 
yet the chances of success were as great as the risks, 
and it was a kind of gambling which appealed 
peculiarly to adventurous spirits. The commerce 



i 20 Naval Operations of the War Between 



destroying put a severe strain on the British mer- 
cantile and seafaring communities. 

Nevertheless, admitting and emphasising all this 
does not mean the admission that privateering was 
the way in which America could best have used her 
strength. The privateers did great and real damage 
to England, and though at first they caused more 
irritation than alarm, they inflicted such punishment 
upon the merchants and the seamen as materially 
to increase the disposition of the British for peace. 
But what they accomplished cannot be compared 
with what w T as accomplished by the British Navy. 
The American privateers harassed the commerce of 
England, but the British blockading fleet destroyed 
the commerce of America. The ravages of the one 
inclined the British people to peace ; but the steady 
pressure of the other caused such a bitter revolt 
against the war in parts of America as nearly to 
produce a civil conflict. The very success of the 
privateers was a damage to the American navy, for 
all the seamen wished to enlist on board them in- 
stead of on board the regular ships of war. Regular 
ships were better commerce destroyers, and, above 
all, battleships would have accomplished far more, 
had the energies of the nation been turned towards 
their production instead of to the production of 
private armed ships. In the coast towns the number 
of seamen who served on board the privateers could 
have manned scores of fast government vessels built 
on the same lines ; and, as these vessels would not 



Great Britain and the United States 121 

have tried to save their prizes, they would have 
inflicted more damage on the enemy. Undoubtedly 
this would have been an advantage, so far as it 
went ; and perhaps, after the outbreak of the war, 
it was too late to try to build a great fighting fleet. 
But in reality what was needed was an infinitely 
more radical change. The substitution of the gov- 
ernment commerce destroyer for the privateer would 
have done some good, but it could not have accom- 
plished anything decisive. What was needed was 
the substitution for all these commerce destroyers 
of a great fighting fleet. Such a fleet by its mere 
existence would doubtless have prevented the war. 
It would certainly, if handled as well as the frigates, 
sloops, and privateers were handled, have prevented 
a blockade, even if war had been declared; and 
American commerce, instead of being destroyed out- 
right, would merely have suffered heavily, just as 
the British commerce suffered. The men employed 
in the privateers would have manned enough ships 
of the line to have brought all this about. A fight- 
ing fleet would have prevented the losses and 
humiliations which the commerce • destroyers were 
utterly powerless to avert. Moreover, it would have 
done more real and lasting damage than the com- 
merce destroyers could possibly do. Commerce 
destroying was a makeshift. It was a very useful 
makeshift, and much good came from the way in 
which it was utilised ; but it must not be forgotten 
that it was only a makeshift, and that the commerce 



122 Naval Operations of the War Between 

destroyers were in no sense satisfactory substitutes 
for great fighting ships of the line, fitted to wrest 
victory from the enemy by destroying his powers, 
both of offence and defence, and able to keep the 
war away from the home coasts. 

The reverses which the British Navy had encoun- 
tered in all the earlier sea fights were mortifying to 
a degree. It was now the turn of the Americans 
to suffer similar mortifications. Perhaps the chief 
cause of the British disasters had been an ignorant 
self-confidence combined with an equally ignorant 
contempt of the enemy, which rendered the British 
indifferent to odds, and indifferent also to that 
thorough training which could alone make their 
ships into efficient fighting machines. The same 
undue self-confidence and undue disregard for the 
prowess of the enemy were now to cause the Ameri- 
cans the loss of one of their frigates and the death 
of one of their most gallant captains. 

In May, 1812, Captain James Lawrence, the 
commander of the Hornet, was promoted to the com- 
mand of the Chesapeake, 38, which was being fitted 
out at Boston. Her crew had just been discharged, 
and, as she was regarded as an unlucky ship, and 
as there had been much dissatisfaction over their 
failure to get prize-money, many of the crew refused 
to re-enlist, preferring to ship in some of the numer- 
ous privateers. A few of the Constitutions old crew 
came on board, and those, and the men who had 
been in the CJicsapeaJce during her former voyage, 



Great Britain and the United States 123 

were excellent material. The rest were raw hands, 
including an unusually large number of foreigners. 
About forty of these were British. There were also 
a number of Portuguese, one of whom, a boatswain's 
mate, almost brought about a mutiny among the 
crew, which was only pacified by giving the men 
prize cheques. The last draft of the new hands was 
not only entirely untrained, but also came on board 
so late that when the ship was captured their ham- 
mocks and bags were still lying in the boats stowed 
over the booms. A man like Lawrence would 
speedily have got such a crew into shape. A cruise 
of a very few weeks would doubtless have enabled 
him to put the ship in as good trim as the Hornet 
was when under his command. But she was in no 
condition to meet an exceptionally good frigate 
before she was eight hours out of port. Even his 
officers, with one exception, were new to the ship, 
and the third and fourth lieutenants were not resru- 
larly commissioned as such, but were only midship- 
men, acting for the first time in higher positions. 
Lawrence himself was of course new to both the 
officers and the crew. 

In such circumstances it was clearly his duty to 
try to avoid an encounter with the enemy until his 
ship should be in good condition to fight. Unfor- 
tunately for him, however, his experiences in the war 
had given him the same unreasonable feeling of 
superiority over his foes as the latter had themselves 
felt a year earlier. He had spent three weeks in 



I 24 Naval Operations of the War Between 

blockading a sloop-of-war, the Bonne Citoyenne, 
which was of equal force with his own, and which 
yet resolutely declined to fight. He had captured 
another sloop-of-war which was, it is true, inferior 
in force, but which was also infinitely inferior in 
point of fighting efficiency ; and this capture had 
been made in spite of the presence of another sloop- 
of-war, which, nevertheless, did not venture out to 
attack him. He had, as he deemed, good ground 
to believe that his foes were so much inferior in 
prowess as to make success almost certain. Indeed, 
had the frigate which he was about to attack been 
no more formidable, as regards the skill of her cap- 
tain and the training of her crew, than the ships 
which the Americans had hitherto encountered, 
Lawrence's conduct might very possibly have been 
justified by the result. 

But the British frigate Shannon, 38, which was 
then cruising off Boston harbour, was under Captain 
Philip Bowes Vere Broke, who had commanded her 
for seven years, and who was one of the ablest cap- 
tains in the British service. A British naval histo- 
rian has explained why it was that the Shannon 
proved herself so much more formidable than her 
sister frigates. 



*er 



" There was another point in which the generality of the 
British crews, as compared with any one American crew, 
were miserably deficient : that is, skill in the art of gunnery. 
"While the American seamen were constantly firing at 
marks, the British seamen, except in particular cases, 



Great Britain and the United States 125 



scarcely did so once in a year ; and some ships could be 
named on board which not a shot had been tired in this 
way for upward of three years. Nor was the fault wholly 
the captain's. The instructions under which he was bound 
to act forbade him to use, during the first six months after 
the ship had received her armament, more shots per month 
than amounted to a third in number of the upper-deck 
guns ; and after these six months only half the quantity. 
Many captains never put a shot in the guns till an enemy 
appeared ; they employed the leisure time of the men in 
handling the sails and in decorating the ship." 

Captain Broke was not one of this kind. 

" From the day on which he had joined her, the 14th of 
September, 1806, the Shannon began to feel the effect of 
her captain's proficiency as a gunner, and zeal for the ser- 
vice. The laying of the ship's ordnance so that it may be 
correctly fired in a horizontal direction is justly deemed a 
most important operation, as upon it depends in a great 
measure the true aim and destructive effect of every future 
shot she may fire. On board the Shannon, at her first out- 
fit, this was attended to by Captain Broke in person. . . . 
By drafts from other ships, and the usual means to 
which a British man-of-war is obliged to resort, the Shan- 
non got together a crew ; and in the course of a year or two, 
by the paternal care and excellent regulations of Captain 
Broke, an undersized, not very well disposed, and, in point 
of age, rather motley ship's company became as pleasant to 
command as they would have been dangerous to meet." * 

The SJiannons guns were all carefully sighted ; 
and, moreover, " every clay, for about an hour and 

1 James, vi. 196 (Ed. 1837). 



i 26 Naval Operations of the War Between 

a half in the forenoon, when not prevented by chase 
or the state of the weather, the men were exercised 
at training the guns, and for the same time in the 
afternoon in the use of the broadsword, pike, mus- 
ket, etc. Twice a week the crew fired at targets, 
both with great guns and with musketry ; and 
Captain Broke, as an additional stimulus beyond 
the emulation excited, gave a pound of tobacco to 
every man that put a shot through the bull's eye." 
He would frequently have a cask thrown overboard, 
and suddenly order some one gun to be manned to 
sink the cask. 

Captain Broke had sent a challenge to Captain 
Lawrence, expressing a willingness to meet the latter 
in a duel in any latitude and longitude he might 
appoint ; for Broke did not expect to be given the 
great advantage of meeting his antagonist just as 
the latter was leaving port, and before her crew 
were in fighting trim ; and he possessed a justifiable 
confidence in the ability of the ship which he com- 
manded to hold her own in any circumstances. It 
may be mentioned that this letter of challenge was 
worthy of the gallant writer, being a model of cour- 
tesy, manliness, and candour. Unfortunately for 
Lawrence, he never received it ; and he stood out 
to engage the Shannon at midday of June 1st, 1813. 1 
Afterwards it was alleged that he engaged against 
his judgment; but this was undoubtedly not the 

1 Navy Department MSS., ' Captains' Letters,' vol. xxix. No. 1; 
Lawrence's letter, June 1st, 1813. 



Great Britain and the United States i 27 

case. The British frigate was in sight in the offing, 
and he sailed out to attack her in the confident hope 
of victory. 

The two ships were very evenly matched, but 
what superiority there was, was on the American 
side. The Chesapeake carried fifty guns — twenty- 
eight long 18's on the gun-deck, and, on the spar- 
deck two long 12's, one long 18, one 12-pr. carronade, 
and eighteen 32-pr. carronades. There were on 
board her 379 men all told. The Shannon carried 
fifty-two guns — twenty-eight long 18's on the gun- 
deck, and, on the spar-deck, four long 9's, one long 
6, three 12-pr. carronades, and sixteen 32-pr. car- 
ronades, with a crew of 330 men. In guns the two 
ships were practically equal, but in crew the Ameri- 
cans were superior by fifty men, which, in an 
engagement at close quarters, ought to have given 
them the upper hand, if the two crews had been 
likewise equal in fighting capacity. 1 

At noon the Chesapeake weighed anchor, stood 
out of Boston harbour, and an hour later rounded 
the lighthouse. The Shannon stood off under easy 
sail. She reefed her topsails, and alternately hauled 
up and again bore away. With her foresail brailed 
up, and her maintopsail braced flat and shivering, 
she surged slowly through the quiet seas, while the 
Chesapeake came down with towering canvas and 
the white water breaking under her bow. When 

1 Letters of Lieutenant George Budd and Captain Broke, and 
Brighton's ' Memoir of Admiral Broke.' 



128 Naval Operations of the War Between 



Boston lighthouse bore west, distant six leagues, the 
Shannon again hauled up, with her head to the south- 
east, and lay-to under fighting canvas, stripped to her 
topsails, topgallant-sails, jib, and spanker. The breeze 
freshened, and as the Chesapeake neared her foe, she 
took in her studding-sails, topgallant-sails, and royals, 
got her royal yards on deck, and came down very fast 
under topsails and jib. At 5.30 p. m., to keep under 
command and be able to wear if necessary, the 
Shannon put her helm alternately a-lee and a- weather, 
first keeping a close luff, and then again letting the 
sails shiver. The Chesapeake had hauled up her 
foresail ; and, with three ensigns flying, she steered 
straight for the Shannon's starboard quarter. For a 
moment Broke feared lest his adversary might pass 
under the Shannons stern, rake her, and engage her 
on the quarter; but the American captain sought 
only a yardarm and yardarm action, to be decided 
by sheer ability to give and take punishment. He 
luffed up fifty yards from the Shannons starboard 
quarter, and squared his mainyard. On board the 
Shannon, the captain of the 14th gun, William Mind- 
ham, had been ordered not to fire until it bore into 
the second main-deck port forward. At 5.50 it was 
fired, and then the other guns in quick succession 
from abaft forward, the Chesapeake replying with 
her whole broadside. At 5.53, Lawrence, finding 
that he was forging ahead, hauled up a little. The 
Chesapeake s guns did murderous damage, but the 
ship herself suffered even more. The men in the 



Great Britain and the United States i 29 

Shannon's tops could hardly see the deck of the 
American frigate through the cloud of shivered and 
splintered wreck that was flying across it. Man 
after man was killed at the wheel ; the fourth lieu- 
tenant, the master, and the boatswain fell , and, six 
minutes after the first gun had been fired, the jib- 
sheet and foretopsail tie were shot away, and the 
spanker brails loosened so that the sails blew out, 
and the ship came up into the wind somewhat. 
Her quarter was then exposed to her antagonist's 
broadside, which beat in her stern ports and swept 
the men from the after-guns. One of the arms-chests 
on the quarter-deck was blown up by a hand-grenade 
thrown from the Shannon, the smoke shrouding 
everything from sight for a moment. 1 Broke saw 
that the Chesapeake had stern-way on and was paying 
slowly off ; so he put his helm a-starboard and 
shivered his mizen-topsail, to keep off the wind and 
delay the boarding. But at that moment the Shan- 
nons jib-stay was shot away (for some of the 
Chesapeake's guns still bore), and, her headsails 
becoming becalmed, she went off very slowly. In 
consequence, at six o'clock, the two frigates fell on 
board one another, the Chesapeake s quarter pressing 
upon the Shannons side just forward of the starboard 
main-chains ; and they were kept in this position by 
the fluke of the Shannons anchor catching in the 
Chesapeake! s quarter port. 

1 Navy Department MSS., ' Captains' Letters,' vol. xxix. No. 
10; Bainbridge's letter, June 2nd, 1S33. 

9 



130 Naval Operations of the War Between 



The Shannons crew had suffered severely, and her 
decks were running thick with blood ; but the trained 
and seasoned seamen stood to their work with grim 
indifference. Broke ran forward as the frigates 
ground against one another. He saw that the 
Americans were flinching from their quarter-deck 
guns, and at once ordered the ships to be lashed 
together, the great guns to cease firing, and the 
boarders to be called. The boatswain, Mr. Stevens, 
who had fought in Rodney's action, was foremost in 
fastening the frigates together, though, as he finished 
his work, an American seaman hacked his right 
arm off with a blow from a cutlass. 

All was confusion and dismay on board the 
Chesapeake. Lieutenant Augustus Charles Ludlow 
had been mortally wounded and carried below. 
Lawrence himself, while standing on the quarter- 
deck, fatally conspicuous by his full-dress uniform 
and commanding stature, was shot as the vessels 
closed by Lieutenant John Law of the Royal Marines. 
He fell dying, and was carried below, exclaiming, 
" Don't give up the ship " — a phrase that has since 
become proverbial among his countrymen. The 
acting third lieutenant, a midshipman, who was a 
devoted admirer of Lawrence, helped to carry him 
below, instead of remaining at his post as he should 
have done. 1 When he returned it was too late. 
Indeed, one or two of the younger officers were 

1 See minutes of court-martial on the loss of the Chesapeake, 
given in Ingersoll, i. 396. 



Great Britain and the United States i 3 1 

stunned and demoralised by the succession of 
disasters. 

While the confusion was at its height, Captain 
Broke stepped from the Shannons gangway rail on 
to the muzzle of the Chesapeake s aftermost car- 
ronade, and thence over the bulwark on to her 
quarter-deck, followed by about twenty men. As 
the British came on board, the men on the Chesa- 
peake s spar-deck, who had suffered more heavily 
than any others, whose officers had all been killed or 
wounded, and who had not the discipline to take 
unmoved such heavy punishment, deserted their 
quarters. The Portuguese boatswain's mate removed 
the gratings of the berth-deck and ran below, fol- 
lowed by many of the crew. On the quarter-deck, 
almost the only man who made any resistance was 
the chaplain, Mr. Samuel Livermore, who advanced, 
firing his pistol at Broke ; and Broke in return cut 
him down with a single stroke. On the upper-deck 
the only men who behaved well were the marines ; 
but of their original number of forty-four men, four- 
teen, including Lieutenant James Broom and 
Corporal Dixon, were dead, and twenty, including 
Sergeants Twin and Harris, wounded ; so that there 
were left but one corporal and nine men, several of 
whom had been knocked down and bruised, though 
they were later reported unwounded. There was 
thus hardly any resistance, Captain Broke stopping 
his men for a moment until they were joined by the 
rest of the boarders under Lieutenants George 



132 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Thomas L. Watt and Charles Leslie Falkiner. The 
Chesapeake's mizen-top men began firing at the 
boarders, mortally wounding Midshipman John 
Samwell, and killing Lieutenant Watt ; but one of 
the Shannon's long 9's was pointed at the top and 
cleared it out, being assisted by the British main-top 
men under Midshipman Cosnahan. At the same 
time the men in the Chesapeake's main-top were 
driven out of it by the fire of the Shannons fore-top 
men under Midshipman William Smith (5). 

The Americans on the main-deck now for the 
first time learned that the British had boarded, as 
the upper-deck men came crowding down; and 
Lieutenant George Budd sprang up, calling on his 
people to follow him. A dozen veterans tumbled 
up after him, and, as they reached the spar-deck, 
Budd led them against the British who were coming 
along the gangways. For a moment, under the 
surprise of the attack, the assailants paused, the 
British purser, Mr. George Aldham, and Captain's 
Clerk, Mr. John Dunn, being killed; but they 
rallied at once, and the handful of Americans were 
cut down or dispersed, Lieutenant Budd being 
wounded and knocked down the main hatchway. 
"The enemy," wrote Captain Broke, "fought des- 
perately, but in disorder." Lieutenant Ludlow, 
already mortally wounded, heard the shouts and the 
stamping overhead, and he struggled up on deck, 
sword in hand. Two or three men followed him ; 
but the rush of the boarders swept them away like 



Great Britain and the United States 133 

chaff, and the dying Ludlow was hewn down as he 
fought. On the forecastle a few seamen and marines 
turned at bay. Captain Broke was still leading his 
men with the same brilliant personal courage which 
he had all along shown. Attacking the first 
American, who was armed with a pike, he parried a 
blow from it and cut down the man ; attacking 
another, he was himself cut down, and only saved 
by the seaman Mindham, already mentioned, who 
slew his assailant. One of the American marines 
brained an Englishman with his clubbed musket; 
and so stubborn was the resistance of the little group, 
that, for a moment, the assailants recoiled; but 
immediately afterwards they closed in and slew their 
foes to a man. The British fired a volley or two 
down the hatchway, in response to a couple of shots 
fired up, whereupon all resistance came to an end ; 
and at 6.5, just fifteen minutes after the first gun had 
been fired, and not five minutes after Captain Broke 
had boarded, the colours of the Chesapeake were 
struck. Of her crew sixty-one were killed or 
mortally wounded, including her captain, her first 
and fourth lieutenants, the lieutenant of marines, 
the master, boatswain, and three midshipmen ; and 
eighty-five were severely or slightly wounded, in- 
cluding both her other lieutenants, five midshipmen, 
and the chaplain : a total of one hundred and forty- 
eight. Of the Shannons men, thirty-three were 
killed outright or died of their wounds, including 
her first Lieutenant, George Thomas L. Watt; 






i 34 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Purser George Aldham ; Captain's Clerk John 
Dunn; and Midshipman John Samwell; and fifty 
were wounded, including the Captain himself and 
the Boatswain, Mr. William Stevens: total, eighty- 
three. The Chesapeake was taken into Halifax, 
where Captain Lawrence and Lieutenant Ludlow 
were both buried with military honours. Captain 
Broke was made a baronet, very deservedly, and 
Lieutenants Wallis 1 and Falkiner 2 were both made 
commanders. 

The battle had been as bloody as it was brief. 
When the Chesapeake surrendered, her crew had 
suffered a much heavier relative loss than the crews 
of the Gfuerriere, the Macedonia?!, or even the Java. 
The Shannon had not only suffered a heavier loss 
than befell the victorious ship in any other single 
ship duel of the war, but had also suffered a loss as 
severe as that which had been held to justify the 
surrender of more than one vessel — the Argus and 
the fipervier, for instance, and even the Guerriere. 
The action was fought at such close quarters and 
under such conditions that there was no room for 
manoeuvring, and, so far as the first broadside was 

1 Provo William Parry Wallis: born, 1791; Lieutenant, 1808; 
Commander, 1813; Captain, 1819; Rear-Admiral, 1851; Vice- 
Admiral, 1857; Admiral, 1863; Admiral of the Fleet, 1877; died 
senior of that rank, and G.C.B., February 13th, 1892, being in his 
hundred and first year. (Life by Bright.) — W. L. C. 

2 Charles Leslie Falkiner: born, 1791; Lieutenant, 1810; Com- 
mander, 1813 ; retired with the rank of Captain, 1848 ; succeeded 
his brother as a Baronet; died, 1858. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 135 



concerned, no room for display of any very great 
difference in gunnery, provided each side was 
moderately efficient. Beyond question, Broke's men 
were far more skilful in the handling of the guns ; 
but this was only one of the factors which went to 
make up the victory. It was a terrific, punishing 
fight, entered into on conditions that ensured the 
taking as well as the giving of very hard blows. 
Such a fight is not merely a test of pluck : it is a 
test, above all others, of training and discipline, and 
of cool-headed readiness to repair injuries and take 
advantage of shifting opportunities. The heavy 
loss on board the Shannon did not confuse or terrify 
the thoroughly trained men, disciplined to place 
implicit reliance in their leaders. A somewhat 
greater loss on board the Chesapeake disheartened 
the raw hands among the crew, and created such 
confusion that there was no immediate readiness to 
remedy any temporary disaster; while even the 
officers, being new to one another and to the ship, 
and some of them being very young, were not able 
to do their best. American writers have been fond 
of saying that the defeat of the Chesapeake was due 
to accident, especially to the loss of the jib-sheet 
and foretop-sail tie, which brought her up into the 
wind, and exposed her to a raking fire. This state- 
ment is simply not true. Such accidents are bound 
to occur in battle ; and a skilled captain and crew 
will remedy them when they occur in their own 
ship, and will take advantage of them when they 



i 36 Naval Operations of the War Between 

occur to the enemy. The victory was not in the 
slightest degree to be attributed to accident, 1 though 
it may have been slightly hastened by it. Trained 
skill and good discipline won, as they had so oft<en 
won before. There was no lack of courage on the 
defeated side ; the heavy death-roll shows that. 
Nearly every American officer was killed or wounded, 
and so were three-fourths of the marines, and half 
the veterans of the crew. 

Nor did the boarding win the victory. When the 
ships came together the Chesapeake was already 
beaten at the guns. She had been struck, all told, 
by three hundred and sixty-two shot of every 
description, and the Shannon, by about one hundred 
and fifty-eight. Had the ships not come together, 
the fight would have been longer, and the loss 
greater and more nearly equal ; but the result would 
have been the same. The Chesapeake s crew had 
been together and on board her only as many hours 
as the Shannon s had been years, and the result was 
what might have been foreseen, when the captain 
of the Shannon had spent his time to such good 
advantage in training his crew. It is worth noticing 
that the only thoroughly disciplined set of men on 
board the Chesapeake, the marines, behaved with 
superb courage and fought to the last, very few of 
them escaping entirely unscathed. Complaint was 
made at the time against the Portuguese and other 

1 Cooper is of little use for this action; and the "accident" 
theory is a favourite with most American writers. 



Great Britain and the United States 137 

foreigners among the crew, and notably against the 
Portuguese boatswain's mate. It appears that at 
the time of the boarding they did not do very well, 
the boatswain's mate in particular showing cow- 
ardice ; but it is idle to ascribe the defeat in any 
way to their action. The Chesapeake was beaten 
before the boarding took place ; and her men had 
suffered too severe a loss, and were too demoralised, 
to oppose successful resistance to gallant Captain 
Broke and his veterans. 

Admiral de La Graviere comments on this fight 
as follows, and his criticism is entirely just : — 

" It is impossible to avoid seeing in the capture of the 
Chesapeake a new proof of the enormous power of a good 
organisation, when it has received the consecration of a few 
years' actual service on the sea. On this occasion, in effect, 
two captains equally renowned, the honour of two navies, 
were opposed to each other, in two ships of the same 
tonnage and number of guns. Never had the chances 
seemed better balanced ; but Sir Philip Broke had com- 
manded the Shannon for nearly seven years, while Captain 
Lawrence had only commanded the Chesapeake for a few 
days. The first of these frigates had cruised for eighteen 
months on the coast of America ; the second was leaving 
port. One had a crew long accustomed to habits of strict 
obedience ; the other was manned by men who had just 
been engaged in mutiny. The Americans were wrong to 
accuse fortune on this occasion. Fortune was not fickle — 
she was merely logical. The Shannon captured the Chesa- 
peake on the first of June, 1813 ; but on the 14th of 
September, 1806, the day when he took command of his 



138 Naval Operations of the War Between 



frigate, Captain Broke had begun to prepare the glorious 
termination of this bloody affair." 1 

No single ship action of the war attracted greater 
attention than this, and none reflected greater credit 
on the victor. After five ships in succession had 
been captured in single fight by the enemy, without 
one victory to relieve the defeats, Captain Broke, 
in sight of the enemy's coast, off the harbour of one 
of his chief seaports, had captured single-handed a 
frigate nominally of equal, and in reality of slightly 
superior, force. He himself was very badly wounded, 
and was never again able to go into active service. 2 
His victory was celebrated with almost extravagant 
joy throughout Britain. The exultation of the 
British was as great as had been their previous 
depression. No other British captain has ever won 
such honour by a single ship action. No other fight 
between frigates has ever been so enthusiastically 
commemorated by the victor's countrymen. Captain 
Broke was made a baronet. Nelson, for the battle 
of the Nile, was only raised to the lowest rank of 
the peerage ; and fifty years later, as we learn from 
" Tom Brown at Rugby," the glory of the Shannon 
and her commander was a favourite theme for song; 
among British schoolboys. 

In America the news of the result caused wide- 

1 ' Guerres Maritimes,' ii. 272. 

2 Philip Bowes Vere Broke: born, 1776; Lieutenant, 1795; Com- 
mander, 1799; Captain, 1801; Baronet, November 2nd, 1813; 
K.C.B., January 2nd, 1815; Rear- Admiral, 1830; died, 1841.— 
W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 139 

spread grief and dismay. A year had made the 
Americans feel the same unjustifiable self-confidence 
that the British had felt at the outbreak of the war, 
and the Shannons victory shattered the one as the 
frigate and sloop actions of 1812 had shattered 
the other. In each case the exultation of the victors 
was an unconscious expression of the high esteem in 
which they had held the prowess of the vanquished. 
The excitement caused by the capture of the 
Guerriare was proof of the commanding position of 
the British Navy ; the joy over the capture of the 
Chesapeake showed the point to which the prowess 
of the Americans had raised the general estimate of 
American ships-of-war. 

The lesson of the Chesapeake was not to stand 
alone. The American brig sloop Argus, 16, com- 
manded by Lieutenant William Henry Allen, had 
crossed the ocean in June, carrying the American 
minister to France. On July 14th, 1813, she put out 
again from Lorient, and cruised in the chops of the 
English Channel, and then along the coast of 
Cornwall and into St. George's Channel. She cap- 
tured and burnt ship after ship, creating the greatest 
consternation among the merchants. The labour 
was very severe, the men getting hardly any rest. 
On the night of August 13th a brig laden with wine 
from Oporto was taken, and many of the crew got 
drunk. At five o'clock on the following morning, a 
large brig-of-war, which proved to be the British 
brig sloop Pelican, under Commander John Fordyce 



140 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Maples, 1 was descried standing down under a 
cloud of canvas. St. David's Head bore east five 
leagues. 

The Argus was a very swift brig, with loftier 
masts and longer spars than the Pelican, though the 
latter was considerably heavier ; and she was armed 
only with 24-pr. carronades as against the 32' s of 
the Pelican. The odds against her were about the 
same as they had been against the Peacock or the 
Java ; but Allen, who had been Decatur's first lieu- 
tenant when the Macedonian was captured, was as 
confident of victory as Lawrence had been, and he 
had no intention of taking advantage of his superi- 
ority of speed to avoid combat. The Argus short- 
ened sail and waited until the Pelican was nearly 
aft, and but a pistol-shot off. Then, at 6 a.m., she 
wore and fired her port guns, the Pelican responding 
with her starboard battery. 2 Immediately after the 
beginning of the action a round shot carried off 
Allen's leg, inflicting a mortal wound ; but he stayed 
on deck until he fainted from loss of blood. Soon 
afterwards the first lieutenant, William Henry 
Watson, was wounded by a grape-shot and carried 
below ; and the second lieutenant, Mr. U. H. Allen, 
was left to fight the brig. The firing was very 

1 The Pelican had anchored at Cork on August 12th, after a 
cruise, and had at once been ordered to sea again in quest of the 
Argus. She had, therefore, taken necessary stores on board, and 
sailed within fourteen hours. — W. L. C. 

2 Minutes of court of inquiry into loss of Argus, March, 1815. 



Great Britain and the United States 141 

heavy, especially from the Pelican ; but most of it 
went high, on both sides. At 6.14 Commander 
Maples bore up to pass astern of his antagonist ; but 
Lieutenant Allen luffed into the wind and threw the 
maintop-sail aback, so as to come square across his 
antagonist's bows. From this position he raked the 
Pelican with his broadside ; but the guns were badly 
aimed, and did little damage. The ships again ran 
off side by side, the fire continuing as furiously as 
ever ; but the Argus began to suffer so much in her 
rigging that she became unmanageable, and fell off 
before the wind. The Pelican then passed under 
her stern, raked her heavily, ranged up on her star- 
board quarter, and raked her again and again ; for 
it was no longer possible to handle her. The Argus 
suffered heavily aloft : her crew escaped without 
severe slaughter, but began to show symptoms of 
demoralisation, not behaving as well as the gal- 
lantry and seamanship of her officers would seem- 
ingly have warranted. In a few moments the Pelican 
passed her foes' broadside, and took a position on 
her starboard bow. At 6.45, three-quarters of an 
hour after the action had begun, the brigs fell 
together, and the Argus struck just as the British 
were about to board. 1 

The Pelican carried twenty-one guns, including 
sixteen 32-pound carronades, four long 6's, and one 
12-pound carronade. The Argus carried twenty 
guns — eighteen 24-pound carronades and two long 

1 Letter of Maples, Aug. 14th, 1813. 



142 Naval Operations of the War Between 

12's. 1 The crew of the Pelican consisted of 113 
men, the crew of the Argus of 104. Seven men 
were killed and wounded in the Pelican, among the 
killed being Master's Mate William Young, and 
twenty-four in the Argus. Both ships were tolerably 
well cut up. The difference in force was less than 
as five to four ; whereas the difference in loss was 
greater than three to one. In other words, the 
Pelican displayed superiority in efficiency as well as 
superiority in weight. The Argus made a distinctly 
poor fight. She did not inflict much damage, and 
though the officers behaved well, most of them being 
killed or wounded, the crew had lost less than a 
fourth of their number when they surrendered. 
The Pelican herself did not show to much advan- 
tage, her gunnery being poor. In short, the action 
was directly the reverse of that between the Chesa- 
peake and the Shannon. Broke won because he did 
even better than his gallant and skilful antagonist ; 
but the Pelican won, although she did poorly, because 

1 James gives the armament of the two brigs thus : — 



Pelican. 



A rgus. 

18 24-pr. carrs. 
2 long British 12-prs. 2 



16 32-pr. carrs. 
2 long 6-prs. 

1 12-pr. boat carr.* 

2 brass 6-prs. f 
Broadside weight of metal, 

262 lbs. 

* Not reckoned as part of the broadside. The 6-prs. were in the stern 
ports, where they inconvenienced the man at the helm. 

t The 12-prs. were in her bridle ports, and not in her broadside. 

— W. L. C. 



Broadside weight of metal, 
228 lbs. 



Great Britain and the United States 143 

her antagonist did very badly indeed. The short- 
comings of the Argus have never been adequately 
explained, for her commander was a man of proved 
courage and ability. It was afterwards stated that 
her powder was poor, and that her crew were over- 
tired, and some of them intoxicated. 1 It seems 
evident that Lieutenant Allen had become over- 
confident, and had let his men fall off in their gun- 
nery, and yet had engaged a heavier antagonist 
when his people were worn out with fatigue. 2 

The next engagement was in favour of the Ameri- 
cans. The only one of the small American gun- 
brigs left was the Enterprise, Lieutenant William 
Burrows. Two bow-chasers had been crowded into 
her bridle-ports, and she was over-manned, mount- 
ing fourteen 18-pr. carronades and two long 9's, 
with a crew of 120 men. She was a very lucky 
little vessel, both before and after the engagement 
now to be told, and, though a dull sailer, of weak 
force, she managed to escape capture, and in her 
turn captured a number of British privateers. One 
of these privateers, mounting fourteen long 9's with 
a crew of seventy-nine men, showed fight, and only 
struck after receiving a broadside which killed and 
wounded four of her crew. Later, being chased by 

1 Cooper ; and minutes of court of inquiry. 

2 Lieutenant W. H. Allen, of the Argus, after having his thigh 
amputated, died at Plymouth on August 18th, and was buried there 
on the 21st. Commander Maples was posted on August 23rd, as a 
reward for his success. He died, after retirement with the rauk of 
Rear-Admiral, in 1847. — W. L. C. 



144 Naval Operations of the War Between 

a frigate, the Enterprise had to throw overboard all 
her guns but two in order to escape. 

In the summer of 1813 she was kept cruising off 
the eastern coast to harass the Nova Scotian and 
New Brunswick privateers. On September 5th, 
while standing along shore near Penguin Point, a 
few miles to the eastward of Portland, Maine, she 
descried at anchor inside, the British gun-brig Boxer, 
Commander Samuel Blyth, of about her own size, 
but with two carronades less, l and only sixty-six 
men in crew. The Boxer at once hoisted ensigns, 
fore and aft, and bore up for the Enterprise, which 
was then standing in on the starboard tack ; but, 
when the two brigs were still four miles apart, it 
fell calm. 2 At midday a breeze sprang up from the 
south-west, giving the Enterprise the weather-gage ; 
and she manoeuvred for some time before closing, in 
order to try the comparative rates of sailing of the 
vessels. At 3 p.m. Lieutenant Burrows hoisted three 
ensigns, shortened sail, and edged away towards the 
Boxer. Commander Blyth had nailed his colours to 
the mast, telling his men that they should never be 
struck while he had life in his body ; 3 and his little brig 
was steered gallantly into action. Both crews were 
in good spirits, and they cheered loudly as the brigs 
neared one another. At a quarter-past three, when 

1 The Boxer, moreover, had two long 6's, instead of long 9-prs. — 
W. L. C. 

2 Letter of Lieutenant Edward R. M'Call, U. S. N., Sept. 5th, 1813. 
8 ' Naval Chronicle,' xxxii. 4G2. 



Great Britain and the United States 145 

the two brigs were on the starboard tack not a half 
pistol-shot apart, they opened fire, the Americans 
using the port, and the British the starboard guns. 
Both broadsides were very destructive, and the two 
commanders fell at the very beginning of the action. 
Commander Blyth was killed by an 18-pound shot, 
which passed through his body while he was stand- 
ing on the quarter-deck. The second in command, 
Lieutenant David M'Creery, continued to fight the 
brig. At almost the same time Lieutenant Burrows 
fell. He had laid hold of a gun-tackle fall to help 
the crew of a carronade to run out the gun. In 
doing so he raised one leg against the bulwark, and 
a canister-shot struck his thigh, glancing into his 
body and inflicting a fearful wound. * In spite of 
the pain, he refused to be carried below, and lay on 
the deck calling out to the men, and cheering them 
to the fight. Lieutenant Edward R. M'Call took 
command in his place. After a quarter of an hour's 
yardarm and yardarm work, the Enterprise ranged 
ahead, rounded to on the starboard tack, and raked 
the Boxer. She shot away the Boxer s maintopmast 
and topsail-yard ; but the British crew kept up the 
fight bravely, with the exception of four men, who 
deserted their quarters and were afterwards court- 
martialled for cowardice. However, there was now 
no chance of success. The Enterprise set her foresail, 
so as to keep on the starboard bow of the Boxer, and 
raked her until she surrendered, half an hour after 

1 Cooper, ii. 259. 
10 



146 Naval Operations of the War Between 

the fight began, she being then entirely unmanage- 
able and defenceless. Lieutenant Barrows would 
not go below until he had received the sword of his 
adversary, when he exclaimed, " I am satisfied ; I 
die contented." 

Both brigs had suffered severely, especially the 
Boxer, which had been hulled repeatedly. The 
Enterprises injuries were chiefly aloft. The differ- 
ence in loss of men was less than the difference in 
damage to the brigs. Twelve of the Americans and 
twenty-one of the British were killed or wounded. 
The British court-martial attributed the defeat of 
the Boxer " to a superiority in the enemy's force, 
principally in the number of men, as well as to a 
greater degree of skill in the direction of her fire, 
and to the destructive effects of the first broad- 
sides." l The main factor was the superiority in 
force, the difference in loss being very nearly pro- 
portional to it. Both sides fought with equal 
bravery ; and the difference in skill, though apprecia- 
ble, was not marked. At a naval dinner given at 
New York shortly afterwards, one of the toasts 
offered was, " The crew of the Boxer ; enemies by law, 
but by gallantry brothers." The two commanders were 
both buried at Portland with all the honours of war. 2 

1 Minutes of court-martial on board II. M. S. Surprise, Jan. 8th. 
1814. 

? Commander Samuel Blyth, born in 1783, had held his rank 
since September 5th, 1811. If my memory of the spot serves me 
aright, a single tree overshadows the graves of both commanders. — 
W. L. C 



Great Britain and the United States 147 

The fight had taken place so close to the shore 
that it could be both seen and heard. Among those 
who listened to the guns was Longfellow, who long 
afterwards commemorated the battle in verse. 
Commander Blyth was a man of high personal 
courage, noted for his gentleness and courtesy. He 
had been one of Captain Lawrence's pall-bearers, 
and, shortly before his death, had been publicly 
thanked by the militia commander of one of the 
Maine districts for the kindness and humanity 
which he had shown to the inhabitants. 

The blockade of the American coast as a whole 
was far more important than any of the single ship 
actions ; but the incidents to relieve the monotony 
were so few that there is little to chronicle beyond 
the fact of the blockade itself, and the further fact 
that it told upon every article which any American 
bought or sold, and that it put every man to such 
trouble and inconvenience, if not to such positive 
want, as to cause formidable discontent. It was 
the mere presence of the ships that accomplished 
this — their ceaseless standing to and fro off the 
coast and at the mouths of the harbours. American 
merchant vessels had been almost driven from the 
ocean, although many ran in and out of the New 
England ports, until, within the closing months of 
the war, the blockade was applied to New England 
also in all its rigour. On the high seas the British 
took many American ships ; but they were mostly 
privateers, or the prizes of privateers, for there were 



148 Naval Operations of the War Between 

not many merchantmen to capture. No vigilance 
by the blockading squadrons could prevent many 
cruisers, public and private, built especially to run 
and to fight, from slipping out of port ; and, of the 
prizes, enough got in to pay well in a certain pro- 
portion of cases ; but mere cargo ships had to undergo 
such risks that they could only be compensated for 
by trebling and quadrupling the prices of the cargoes. 
The weary sameness of the blockade was broken by 
occasional descents to harry the coast, or by cutting- 
out expeditions against gunboats and privateers. 
Of course, these were mere incidents, valuable chiefly 
as relieving the monotony of the life, though, in 
the case of the descents, they had a certain effect in 
harassing and worrying the Americans. Even the 
damage done by these expeditions, however, proba- 
bly caused as much anger as willingness to come to 
terms. It was the constant pressure of the blockade 
itself that counted, together with the opportunities 
which it offered for descents in force, rather than 
the mere harrying expeditions. 

It was early in April, 1813, when Rear- Admiral 
George Cockburn first began to harry the shores of 
the Chesapeake in earnest. His little flotilla was 
manned by but four or five hundred men ; yet he 
stationed himself at the mouth of the Susquehanna 
and supplied the whole British fleet with provisions 
from American towns and farms ; and no effort 
worth speaking of was made to molest him. All 
Maryland was fiercely excited and angered; but 



Great Britain and the United States 149 

Maryland had to learn the lesson that, after war 
has begun, it is impossible to do much by improvised 
means of defence against a trained enemy who can 
choose his own point of attack. The militia here 
and there gathered for resistance; but Cockburn's 
veterans, sailors and soldiers, dispersed them with 
the utmost ease. He destroyed a large cannon 
foundry, he burned all the towns where there was 
any resistance, and, early in May, he brought back 
his flotilla to Sir John Borlase Warren, having had 
but one man wounded during the month which he 
had spent working his will among the Marylanders. 
The American newspapers denounced him bitterly 
as a buccaneer ; but they should have denounced 
even more severely themselves and their political 
leaders. It was a bitter disgrace to the American 
people that they should be powerless to resent or 
repel such insults to their shores; and it was a 
severe commentary on their folly in having refused 
in the past, and even at the time refusing, to organ- 
ise the thoroughly trained forces by sea and land 
which alone could prevent or avenge such a catas- 
trophe. 

This expedition showed that the villages and 
country districts were completely at the mercy of 
the British. There were three towns of importance, 
Baltimore, Washington, and Norfolk, which were 
also within striking distance of the fleet; and, in 
June, Warren made up his mind to attack one of 
these. He chose Norfolk, because there was the 



150 Naval Operations of the War Between 



Portsmouth Navy Yard, and there lay the Con- 
stellation frigate. The expedition, however, mis- 
carried, although the Admiral had at his disposal 
three thousand troops and thirteen war vessels. 
The land forces became entangled among some deep 
creeks, and re-embarked without making any serious 
effort to carry out their part of the programme. 
The attack by the Navy was made in a division of 
fifteen boats with seven hundred men, under the 
command of Captain Samuel John Pechell of the 
San Domingo, 74. Captain John Martin Hanchett, 
of the Diadem frigate, led the way in his launch. 
The point chosen for attack was Craney Island, 
where a battery of six 18-prs. had been erected and 
put in charge of a hundred sailors and fifty marines 
from the Constellation, under Lieutenants Neale, 
Shubrick, Saunders, and Breckinbridge of that ship. 1 
The water was shallow, and the attack was not 
pushed with the resolution ordinarily displayed by 
the British Navy in an enterprise of the kind. The 
Constellation's men reserved their fire until the British 
were close in, when they opened with destructive 
effect. While still more than seventy yards from the 
guns, the Diadems launch grounded. Three of the 
boats were sunk by shot, but remained above water, 
as it was so shallow ; and, in the heat of the fight, 
some of the Constellation s crew, headed by Midship- 
man Tatnall, waded out and took possession. 2 Some 

1 Letter of Captain John Cassin, June 23rd, 1813. 

a ' Life of Commodore Josiah Tatnall/ by Charles C. Jones, p. 17. 



Great Britain and the United States 151 

of the crews surrendered and went ashore with their 
captors ; the others escaped to the remaining boats, 
which immediately afterwards made off in disorder, 
having lost ninety-one men. 1 The assailants after- 
wards strove to justify themselves by asserting that 
the bottom was covered with slime and mud too 
deep to admit of their getting on shore; but this 
was certainly not the case, as it did not prevent 
Tatnall and his companions from wading out to 
them, and from returning in safety with the 
prisoners. The Americans suffered no loss. 

This took place on June 22nd, 1813. Smarting 
under the repulse, Warren, on the 25th, sent Cock- 
burn, accompanied by a land force under Major- 
General Sir Sydney Beckwith, to attack Hampton 
village. The militia on that occasion gave Beckwith 
a rather stout fight, killing and wounding some 
fifty men before they were dispersed. The town was 
then taken and destroyed with circumstances of 
horrible outrage. Lieutenant-Colonel C. J. Napier, 
of the 102nd Regiment, commanded Beckwith's 
advance, and prevented his men from joining in the 
deeds of the " miscreants," as he called them. He 
wrote, with intense indignation, that the troops 
perpetrated with impunity " every horror — rape, 
murder, pillage — and not a man was punished;' 
and he blamed Sir Sydney for not hanging several 
of the villains. 2 Nothing was done, however ; and 

1 James, vi. 233 [ed. 1837]. 

3 ' Life of General Sir Charles James Napier,.' i. 221, 225. 



152 Naval Operations of the War Between 

the affair caused bitter anger in America, leading to 
reprisals and counter-reprisals on the Canadian 
frontier. Although none of the offenders were 
punished, both Sir John Warren and General Beck- 
with took steps to prevent any repetition of the 
outrages, dismissing from the service a regiment of 
French deserters in British pay, who were alleged to 
be the chief offenders. 1 During the remainder of 
the year Warren cruised off Chesapeake Bay and at 
the mouth of the lower Potomac, keeping Virginia 
and Maryland in a state of incessant alarm ; which 
makes it all the more wonderful that those States 
were not roused to take measures for efficient 
defence. Cockburn sailed south to harry the coast 
of the Carolinas and Georgia. Colonel Napier went 
with him to North Carolina to take part in the 
descents, and left on record his distaste for what he 
called " a necessary part of our job, viz., plundering 
and ruining the peasantry . . . (for) no outrages 
have been authorised on persons, though much on 
property, unavoidably." 

1 James (vi. 234, ed. 1S37), while admitting that outrages were 
committed, makes a feeble attempt to minimise them by quoting 
from the Georgetown Federal Republican, of July 7th, 1813, the fol- 
lowing : " The statement of the women of Hampton being violated 
by the British turns out to be false. A correspondence upon that 
subject, and the pillage said to have been committed there, has taken 
place between General Taylor and Admiral Warren. Some plunder 
appears to have been committed, but it was confined to the French 
troops employed." If the outrages were perpetrated by troops in 
British pay, Britain was, unhappily, responsible for what occurred ; 
and Napier's testimony puts the question of outrage beyond chal- 
lenge. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 153 



Meanwhile the American gunboats had on one or 
two occasions made efforts to harass the British 
blockading squadrons, with ludicrously futile results. 
The gunboats were sloop or schooner-rigged, and 
armed with one or two long heavy guns, and 
occasionally with light carronades to repel boarders. 
The larger gunboats were useful in convoying parties 
of small coasting vessels from one port to another ; 
and they interfered with the British boats and 
tenders, and also kept privateers off the coast. The 
smaller gunboats, which were chiefly employed in 
attacks on the frigates, had been built in accordance 
with Jefferson's theory of coast protection, and they 
proved utterly worthless. They trusted mainly to 
their sweeps for motive power, and each was usually 
armed with a long 12 or 18-pounder. They could 
be used only in an almost absolute calm, for in any 
wind it was not only impossible to fire, but also 
difficult to keep the boats right side up. Both 
officers and men hated the gunboat service, and 
were so convinced of the uselessness of the vessels 
that they made but half-hearted attempts to do 
anything with them. The gunboats were much 
smaller and in every way inferior to the big Danish 
gunboats, which, during the same period, did at 
times efficient work on the coast of Denmark. That 
the fault lay in the boats themselves, and not in the 
crews who manned them, was proved by the great 
gallantry with which the latter afterwards behaved 
at Bladensburg. 



154 Naval Operations of the War Between 

On June 20th fifteen gunboats attacked the Junon, 
38, Captain James Sanders, while she lay becalmed 
in Hampton road. The gunboats anchored while 
still at a very long range, and promptly drifted 
round, so that they could not shoot. They then got 
under way, and gradually drew nearer the. Junon. 
A long-range cannonade followed, in which the 
Junon was very slightly injured, and the gunboats 
suffered not at all ; but as soon as a slight breeze 
sprung up, the Barrosa, 36, Captain William Henry 
Shirreff, approached, and promptly drove off the 
flotilla ; for as soon as they felt the effects of the 
breeze the gunboats became useless, and could 
only retire. The only loss they suffered was one 
man killed and two wounded, from the Barrosa's 
fire. 

On that occasion the Junon did little better than 
the gunboats; but she had her revenge a month 
later. On July 29th she was in Delaware Bay with 
the ship-sloop Martin, 18, Commander Humphrey 
Fleming Senhouse, when the latter grounded on the 
outside of Crow's Shoal. The frigate anchored 
within supporting distance ; and shortly afterwards 
the two ships were attacked by a flotilla of ten 
American gunboats. Besides the usual disadvan- 
tages of gunboats, these particular ones suffered 
under an additional handicap, for their powder was 
so bad that all of the officers had joined in a solemn 
protest to the Navy Department, and had stated 



Great Britain and the United States 155 

that it was unfit for service. 1 The flotilla kept at a 
distance which permitted an hour's cannonading 
with no damage to anybody, their own shot failing 
to reach even the brig, while those of the frigate 
occasionally passed over them. During the firing, 
gunboat No. 121, Sailing-Master Shead, drifted a 
mile and a half away from her consorts. This gave 
the British an opportunity, of which they took 
prompt advantage. They made a dash for No. 121 
in seven boats, containing one hundred and forty 
men, under the command of Lieutenant Philip 
Westphal. Mr. Shead anchored, and made an 
obstinate defence ; but at the second discharge of 
his long-gun the carriage was almost torn to pieces, 
and he was reduced to the use of small-arms. 2 The 
British boats advanced steadily, firing their boat 
carronades and musketry, and carried the gunboat 
by boarding, though not without a loss of three 
killed or mortally wounded, and four wounded, 
while seven of the twenty-five members of the gun- 
boat's crew suffered likewise. 

At about the same time the boats of the British 
brig-sloops Contest and Mohaivk, under the command 
of Lieutenant Rodger Carley Curry, made an attack 
on the little gunboat Asp, 8, commanded by Mid- 
shipman Sigourney, when she was moored in 

1 Navy Department MSS., « Masters Commandants' Letters,' 
1813, No. 3 ; enclosed in letter of Master-Commandant Samuel 
Angus. 

2 Letter of Mr. Shead, Aug. 5th, 1813. 



156 Naval Operations of the War Between 



Yeocomico Creek, out of the Chesapeake, on July 
11th. After a murderous conflict, in which eleven 
Americans, including Mr. Sigourney, and eight 
British, including Lieutenant Curry, were killed or 
wounded, the British carried the Asp and set her on 
fire. However, the surviving Americans, nine in 
number, escaped to the shore, rallied under Midship- 
man McClintock, and, as soon as the British retired, 
boarded the Asp, put out the flames, and got her 
into fighting order. 1 They were not again mo- 
lested. 

Shortly before this, on June 12th, the boats of 
the British frigate Narcissus, 32, Captain John 
Richard Lumley, containing fifty men under the 
command of Lieutenant John Cririe, captured the 
little cutter Surveyor, 6, under Mr. William S. 
Travis, with a crew of fifteen men, as she lay in 
York River, out of the Chesapeake. 2 The struggle 
was brief but bloody, five Americans and nine Brit- 
ish beins: killed or wounded. Lieutenant Cririe led 
his men with distinguished gallantry, and proved 
himself a generous victor, for he returned Mr. 
Travis's sword with a letter running : " Your gal- 
lant and desperate attempt to defend your vessel 
against more than double your number on the night 
of the 12th instant, excited such admiration on the 
part of your opponents as I have seldom witnessed 

1 Letter of Midshipman McClintock, July 15th, 1813; also 
James, vi. 236 (ed. 1837). 

2 Letter of W. S. Travis, June 16th, 1813. 



Great Britain and the United States 157 



and I am at a loss which to admire most — the 
previous arrangements on board the Surveyor, or the 
determined manner in which her deck was disputed 

inch by inch." 

In January, 1814, the little United States coast- 
ing schooner Alligator, of four guns and forty men, 
Sailing-Master R. Bassett, was attacked by the boats 
of a British frigate and brig, after nightfall, while 
lying at anchor in the mouth of the Stone River, 
South Carolina. Two of her men were killed and 
two wounded ; but the boats were beaten off with 
severe loss, one of them being captured. 1 

Besides these engagements with the United States' 
armed vessels, boat-parties from the British two- 
deckers and frigates destroyed many privateers and 
merchantmen all along the coast from New England 
to Georgia, as well as on the high seas. Some of 
the privateers showed fight ; and of them some 
behaved with courage that would have done credit 
to any ship in the regular navy, while others 
betrayed panic or inefficiency which would have 
disgraced the worst ship in the worst regular navy 
afloat. In short, they were the militia of the sea, 
and they could not be depended upon for steady 
fighting, though at times their feats were brilliant to 
a degree ; for, unlike the militia of the land, they 
were trained to the profession of arms, and they 
followed by choice a pursuit of peril and hazard. 

1 Letters of Bassett, Jan. 31st, 1814, and Commander J. H. Dent, 
Feb. 21st, 1814. 



158 Naval Operations of the War Between 

A good example of the wide variety in behaviour 
of the privateers under similar circumstances was 
afforded by two incidents which occurred in Chesa- 
peake Bay early in 1813. On February 8th, nine 
boats, with two hundred men under the command 
of Lieutenant Kelly Nazer, from the four British 
frigates, Belvidera, Maidstone, Junon, and Statira, 
were sent against the schooner Lottery, John South- 
comb, master, a letter of marque of six 12-pr. car- 
ronades, and twenty-five men, bound from Baltimore 
to Bordeaux. A calm came on, enabling the boats 
to overtake the schooner ; and they spread out, then 
closing in with a rush. The schooner 1 was speedily 
carried, but only after an obstinate struggle, in 
which Southcomb and nineteen of his crew, together 
with six of the assailants, were killed or wounded. 
Southcomb, mortally wounded, was taken on board 
the Belvidera, where Captain Richard Byron (2) 
treated him with the kind and considerate courtesy 
which always marked that brave officer's dealings 
with his foes ; and, when Southcomb died, his body 
was sent ashore with every mark of respect due to 
a brave officer. Captain Stewart, of the Constella- 
tion, wrote Captain Byron a letter thanking him for 
his generous conduct. 2 

On March 16th, 1813, a smaller British division 

1 The Lottery was added to the Royal Navy as the Canso, 16. — 
W. L. C. 

2 The whole correspondence is given in full in ' Niles's Register,' 
February and March numbers. 



Great Britain and the United States 159 

of five boats and one hundred and five men, com- 
manded by Lieutenant James Polkinghorne, attacked 
the privateer schooner Dolphin, and the letters of 
marque Racer, Arab, and Lynx, mounting all told 
thirty guns, with an aggregate of one hundred and 
sixty men. Polkinghorne' s force was greatly infe- 
rior: nevertheless it dashed in with the utmost 
gallantry, and the privateersmen speedily became 
panic-stricken. The Arab and Lynx surrendered at 
once. The Racer was carried, after a sharp strug- 
gle in which Polkinghorne was wounded ; and her 
guns were turned on the Dolphin. Most of the 
latter's crew jumped overboard. A few rallied 
round their captain, but they were at once scat- 
tered as the British seamen came on board. 1 It 
was an unusually brilliant and daring cutting-out 
expedition. 2 

The American gunboats occasionally captured 
British privateers, and on more than one occasion 
cut them out, when they were becalmed or at 
anchor, with boat-parties ; but they did nothing 
of any especial note in that way. They also at 

1 See Niles for this ; also James's ' Naval Occurrences.' 

2 In this affair, besides Lieutenant Polkinghorne, Lieutenant 
William Alexander Brand, Lieutenant William Richard Flint, R.M., 
Midshipman John Sleigh, and 7 men were wounded. In spite of 
its gallant nature, no medal was ever granted for it. The Ameri- 
cans lost 16 killed and wounded. The Racer became the Shelburne, 
14, and the Lynx, the Afusquedobet, 14, in the Royal Navy. Polk- 
inghorne was not made a Commander until June 27th, 1814. He 
was posted on August 25th, 1828, and died on January 9th, 1839. — 
W. L. C. 



160 Naval Operations of the War Between 

times cut off tenders to the British war vessels, or 
interfered with the British cutting-out expeditions. 

In the spring of 1814 the command of the British 
fleet on the coast of North America was given to 
Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Forester Inglis Coch- 
rane. 1 The main British force continued to lie in 
the Chesapeake. 

During 1813 and 1814 the blockade of the Amer- 
ican coast was so severe that only occasionally could 
American frigates get to sea ; and those that did get 
to sea failed to accomplish anything. Once or twice 
one of the American 44's chased a British 18-pounder 
frigate and failed to come up with her ; and once or 
twice they were themselves chased by a couple of 
18-pounder frigates and escaped. They captured a 
few merchantmen and picked up one or two small 
British cruisers, while two or three small American 
cruisers, brigs, or schooners were lost in the same 
way ; but nothing of importance happened to any 
American frigates, with one exception. 

That exception was the Essex, 32, Captain David 
Porter, which spent most of the year 1813 in the 
Pacific. The Essex had left the United States on 
October 28th, 1812. As she expected to make a 
very long cruise, she carried an unusual quantity of 
provisions, and sixty more men than ordinarily, so 
as to man any ships which she might capture. She 

1 Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren, whom Cochrane superseded, 
was only sixty-one years of age, but was very infirm. Cochrane 
was but fifty-six. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 1 6 1 

cruised in the South Atlantic for two or three 
months, capturing some valuable prizes. Porter 
then decided on the very bold course of doubling 
Cape Horn, and striking at the British whalers in 
the Pacific. 

This was practically going into the enemy's 
waters, for there were no stations where the Essex 
could refit in safety, while South America and South- 
Eastern Asia were full of ports friendly to the 
British. No American frigate had ever before gone 
into the Pacific ; and during all the long Euro- 
pean warfare, no one of Great Britain's enemies 
had ventured to attack her in the remote South 
Seas. 

At the end of the winter the Essex doubled the 
Horn, and sailed into the harbour of Valparaiso. 
On March 20th she captured a Peruvian corsair, 
the Nereyda, which had been harassing American 
whalers. Porter threw her guns and small-arms 
overboard, and sent her into port. The Spanish 
colonies were at that time in open revolt against 
Spain, both sides bidding for the favour of Britain ; 
and there was lawlessness throughout the South 
Seas. The American whalers had been in great 
danger of capture, but Porter's appearance saved 
them. He cruised hither and thither to the different 
islands and archipelagoes most frequented by whaling 
vessels ; and, as by-play, he took part in the wars of 
the savages. He saved all the American whalers, 
and did not cost the government a dollar, supplying 

11 



1 62 Naval Operations of the War Between 

everything from his prizes — sails, guns, anchors, 
provisions, medicine, and even money to pay the 
officers and the men. He completely broke up the 
British whaling trade in the Pacific, capturing or 
destroying four thousand tons of shipping, and 
making prisoners of four hundred men. One or two 
of the prizes he turned into tenders ; and these and 
the boat-parties had one or two smart skirmishes in 
capturing such of the whalers as were armed letters 
of marque. 1 

Early in January, 1814, he returned to the South 
American coast, and again made the harbour of 
Valparaiso. One of the captured whalers, rechris- 
tened the Essex Junior, 2 was in company as a tender. 
On February 8th the British frigate Phoebe, 36, 
Captain James Hillyar, accompanied by the ship- 
sloop Cherub, 18, Commander Thomas Tudor Tucker, 
made their appearance in the harbour. They had 
been sent to the Pacific especially to capture Porter, 
to break up the American whaling trade, and to 
destroy the American fur-stations at the mouth of 
the Columbia. When they came into the harbour 
Porter was afraid that they might try to carry the 
Essex out of hand without regard to the neutrality 
laws. The Essex was put in fighting trim. The 
Phoebe came so near her — whether by accident, as 
Hillyar asserted, or by design, as Porter insisted, 
cannot be said — that a collision seemed imminent; 

1 In Porter's own book this cruise is described at length. 

2 Previously the Atlantic. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 163 

but neither captain was willing to begin the fray, 
and the peace of the port was not broken. 

The British ships began a blockade of the port 
which lasted over a month. Porter was anxious to 
meet the Phoebe alone, and Hillyar was equally de- 
termined to use the advantage which his two ships 
gave him. He was quite right in refusing single 
combat except on his own terms. The Phoebe was 
armed like the Essex with forty-six guns ; but on 
her main-deck she carried long 18's, so that at a 
distance she could cut the Essex to pieces without 
suffering any material loss or damage. Her crew 
consisted of over three hundred men, while that of 
the Essex numbered but two hundred and fifty- five. 
But, on the occasions when he sought a single com- 
bat, Porter took the crew of the Essex Junior on 
board, which gave him sixty men additional. In 
such circumstances the widely different armaments 
of the two frigates made it difficult to foretell the 
result of a combat between them. In ordinary cir- 
cumstances, and taking into account the ordinary 
chances and vicissitudes of naval warfare, the 
Phoebe's armament was beyond all comparison the 
better ; but the Essex was the swifter ship, and at 
close quarters her carronades threw, of course, a 
greater weight in broadside than the long-guns to 
which they were opposed, while, when she had the 
crew of the Essex Junior on board, the complements 
of the two ships were about equal, while the crew of 
the Essex had been especially trained with a view to 



s 



164 Naval Operations of the War Between 

boarding. If his speed had enabled him to close, 
Porter would have had more than an even chance of 
winning ; whereas he had no chance at all in action 
at a distance. Hillyar was not in the South Pacific 
as a naval knight-errant. His business there was to 
capture the Essex. It would have been folly to risk 
the result on a doubtful single ship duel, instead of 
utilising his superiority in force, and trying to get his 
antagonist at a disadvantage. The Cherub was a 
small frigate-built sloop, mounting twenty-six guns, 
with a crew of about 160 men. All her guns were 
carronades, excepting two long bow-chasers. 

Toward the end of March, Porter decided to run 
out of harbour on the first opportunity, so as to 
draw away his two antagonists in chase, and let the 
Essex Junior escape ; for Porter had satisfied himself 
that his ship was faster than either of the British 
ships. After he had come to this conclusion, the 
two vessels were kept always ready, the Essex hav- 
ing only her proper complement of 255 men on 
board. 

On March 28th it came on to blow from the 
south, and the Essex parted her cables. She then 
got under way and made sail, Porter having deter- 
mined to put his plan in operation. The British 
vessels were close in with the weathermost point of 
the bay, and Porter hauled up to pass to windward 
of them. Just as he was rounding the outermost 
point, and when safety was almost within his grasp, 
a heavy squall struck the Essex, and her main top- 



Great Britain and the United States 165 

mast went by the board. Porter then committed a 
grave error. David Glasgow Farragut, 1 then a mid- 
shipman, and afterwards the greatest admiral of the 
American navy, was on board the Essex ; and in 
after life he always expressed the opinion that she 
should have run before the wind, which had shifted, 
and have tried to escape into the open sea; for 
Farragut believed that, even with her topmast out, 
she would have been faster before the wind than the 
Phoebe, and certainly much faster than the Cherub. 
This at least would have given her a chance to 
escape : otherwise she had no chance at all. 2 

However, the Essex tried to get back to the 
harbour, and failing, because of her crippled con- 
dition, she anchored, at 3.40 p.m., in a small bay 
three miles from Valparaiso, and half a mile from a 
detached Chilian battery. She was within pistol- 
shot of the shore, and was as much entitled to the 
benefit of neutral rights as when in Valparaiso 
harbour; but neutral rights have shifting values, 
and Hillyar had no idea of letting his foe escape 
when disabled and within his grasp. 

The Phoebe and Cherub bore down upon the Essex, 
covered with ensigns, union jacks, and motto flags ; 

1 David Glasgow Farragut, born in Tennessee, of part Spanish 
ancestry, July 5th, 1801 ; gained undying fame as a naval com- 
mander in the American Civil War, 1861-65, notably at New 
Orleans and in Mobile Bay ; was the first officer to be given the rank 
of Admiral in the United States Navy; visited Europe, 1867-68; 
died in New York, August 14th, 1870. Life by L. Farragut, by 
Headley, and by Mahan. — W. L. C. 

2 ' Life of Farragut,' by his son, Loyall Farragut, pp. 37-46. 



1 66 Naval Operations of the War Between 

and the Essex made ready to receive them, her flags 
flying from every mast. 1 The fight was begun 
before the springs could be got on her cables. 
Hillyar made his attack with extreme caution, taking 
his frigate under the stern of the Essex, while the 
Cherub took her position on the American's star- 
board bow. The action began soon after four in the 
afternoon. The Essex s bow-chasers speedily drove 
off the Cherub, which ran down and stationed her- 
self near the Phoebe. The latter opened with her 
broadside of long 18's from a position in which not 
one of Porter's guns could reach her. Three times 
springs were got on the cables of the Essex, in order 
to bring her round until her broadside bore ; but in 
each instance they were shot away. Three long 
12's were then got out of the stern-ports ; and with 
these a brisk fire was kept up, aimed especially at 
the rigging of the British ships. A good many of 
the Essex's crew were killed during the first five 
minutes, before she could bring any guns to bear ; 
but afterwards she did not suffer much. Meanwhile 
her own long 12's were so well handled that, after 
a quarter of an hour's firing, the Phoebe and Cherub 
were actually driven off. They wore, and again 
began with their long-guns, but found themselves at 
too great range to accomplish anything ; and about 
half an hour after the first shot had been fired, the 
British ships hauled out of the fight for the time 

1 Letters of Captain Hillyar, March 30th, 1814, and Captain 
Porter, July 3rd, 1811. 



Great Britain and the United States 167 

being. " Our first fire . . . produced no visible 
effect ; our second . . . was not apparently more 
successful ; and, having lost the use of our main- 
sail, jib, and mainstay, appearances were a little 
inauspicious," wrote Captain Hillyar in his official 
report. 

The damages were soon repaired, and the two 
ships stood back for the Essex. The Phoebe anchored 
off her port quarter, at about 5.35 p.m., while the 
Cherub kept under way, using her long bow-chasers. 
They were out of reach of Porter's carronades, his 
long-guns would not bear, and the enemy was 
gradually knocking the Essex to pieces without 
suffering any damage in return. This could not be 
borne, and at 5.50 Porter severed his cable and tried 
to close with his antagonists. His rigging and sails 
were cut almost to pieces. Still, the Essex drove 
down on her assailants, and for the first time got 
near enough to use her carronades. After exchang- 
ing a couple of broadsides, the Cherub hauled out of 
the fight, and the Phoebe also edged off. The latter 
now possessed the superiority of sailing, for her foe 
was almost helpless, and so Hillyar was able to 
choose his own distance. Again he opened with his 
long 18's, out of range of the Essex's carronades. 
All that Porter could do was to reply with his long 
12's. There was no hope of success left, but the 
Essex was not yet ready to surrender. 

From that point on it was a slaughter rather 
than a battle. The carnage in the American frigate 



1 68 Naval Operations of the War Between 



made her decks look like shambles. Throughout 
the entire war no ship on either side was so desper- 
ately defended as the Essex, taking into account the 
frightful odds against which she fought ; indeed, the 
Frolic, the Reindeer, and the Lawrence were the only 
ships which in this respect deserved any comparison 
with her. Captain Hillyar in his official report 
says, " The defence of the Essex, taking into con- 
sideration our superiority of force, and the very 
discouraging circumstances of her having lost her 
maintopmast, and being twice on fire, did honour 
to her brave defenders, and fully evinced the courage 
of Captain Porter and those under his command." 
A middle-aged man, cool and wary, he very properly 
declined to expose his men to needless danger ; but 
his first Lieutenant, William Ingram, a hot-headed, 
impulsive young fellow, begged him to close and run 
Porter aboard, for it was "deliberate murder" to 
lie off at long range and use a defenceless foe as a 
target. Poor gallant Ingram was himself slain in 
the fight, a splinter striking him in the head as he 
stood by the rail. 

Midshipman Farragut was naturally enough very 
much impressed by his baptism of fire, and he has 
preserved for us most of what we know of what 
occurred on board the Essex during the time of 
slaughter that preceded her surrender. 

One gun was manned three times, fifteen men be- 
ing slain at it. Its captain alone escaped without 
a wound. As Farragut stood by another gun, he 



Great Britain and the United States 169 

saw four of its crew killed by a single ball. There 
were but one or two instances of flinching. The 
wounded, many of whom were killed by flying 
splinters while under the hands of the doctors, 
cheered on their comrades, and themselves worked 
the guns until the mortal weakness came upon 
them. At one of the guns was a young Scotsman 
named Bissly, who had one leg shot off close to the 
groin. Using his handkerchief as a tourniquet, he 
said, turning to his American shipmates, " I left my 
own country and adopted the United States to fight 
for her. I hope I have this day proved myself 
worthy of the country of my adoption. I am no 
longer of any use to you or to her, so good-bye ! " 
With these words he leaned on the sill of the port 
and threw himself overboard. Among the very few 
men who flinched was one named William Roach. 
Porter sent one of his midshipmen to shoot him, but 
he was not to be found. He was discovered by a 
.man named William Call, whose leg had been shot 
off and was hanging by the skin, and who dragged 
the shattered stump all round the bag-house, pistol 
in hand, trying to get a shot at the fellow. A sin- 
gular feature of Roach's cowardice was that on 
previous occasions he had shown much courage. He 
could fight well when there was a hope of victory, 
but he flinched in the awful hour of disaster. Lieu- 
tenant J. G. Cowell had his leg shot off above the 
knee, and his life might have been saved had it been 
amputated at once ; but the surgeons had already 



170 Naval Operations of the War Between 

rows of wounded men waiting for them, and when 
it was proposed to him that he should be attended 
to out of order, he replied, " No doctor, none of that 
— fair play 's a jewel ! One man's life is as dear as 
another's. I would not cheat any poor fellow out 
of his turn." 

Finding it hopeless to try to close, Porter stood 
for the land, intending to run the Essex ashore and 
burn her. But when she had drifted close to the 
bluffs, the wind suddenly shifted, took her flat aback, 
and paid her head off shore, exposing herself to a 
raking fire. At that moment Lieutenant John 
Downes, commanding the Essex Junior, pulled out 
in a boat, in spite of the cannonade, to see if he 
could do anything. Three of the men with him, 
including an old boatswain's mate named Kingsbury, 
had come out expressly "to share the fate of the old 
ship " ; so they remained on board, and in their 
places Lieutenant Downes took some of the wounded 
ashore under a heavy fire. The shift of the wind 
gave Porter a faint hope of closing ; and once more 
the crippled and riddled Essex was headed for 
her foes. But Hillyar put his helm up to avoid 
close quarters. The battle was his already, and he 
was too good an officer to leave anything to chance. 
Seeing that he could not close, Porter had a hawser 
bent on the sheet-anchor, which he let go. This 
brought the ship's head round, keeping her station- 
ary ; and, from such of her guns as were not dis- 
mounted and had men enough left to man them, a 



Great Britain and the United States 171 

broadside was fired at the Phoebe. The wind was 
now very light, and the Phoebe, whose masts were 
seriously wounded, and which had suffered much 
aloft, beside receiving a number of shot between 
wind and water, thus being a good deal crippled, 
began to drift slowly to leeward. Porter hoped that 
she would drift out of gunshot; but even this 
chance was lost by the parting of the hawser, which 
left the Essex at the mercy of the British vessels. 
Their fire was deliberate and destructive, and could 
only be occasionally replied to by a shot from one of 
the American's long 12's. The ship caught fire, and 
the men came tumbling up from below with their 
clothes burning. To save the lives of some of them 
they were ordered to jump overboard; and others, 
thinking it a general order, followed suit, leaping 
into the sea and trying to swim to the land. Some 
failed, and were drowned. Others succeeded : among 
them being one man who had sixteen or eighteen 
pieces of iron in his leg, scales from the muzzle of a 
gun. The old boatswain's mate, Kingsbury, was 
one of those who escaped by swimming to shore, 
though he was so burned that he was out of his 
mind for several days. 

The frigate had been cut to pieces above the 
water-line, although, from the smoothness of the 
sea, she was not harmed enough below it to reduce 
her to a sinking condition. The carpenter reported 
that he alone of his crew was fit for duty : the 
others were dead or disabled. One of the lieuten- 



172 Naval Operations of the War Between 

ants had been knocked overboard by a splinter and 
drowned. He had as a servant a little negro boy, 
who, coming on deck and hearing of the disaster, 
deliberately leaped into the sea and shared his 
master's fate. Another of the lieutenants was 
also knocked overboard, but was not much hurt, 
and swam back to the ship. The only commis- 
sioned officer left on duty was Lieutenant Decatur 
McKnight. Of the two hundred and fifty-five men 
on board, fifty-eight had been killed, sixty-six 
wounded, and thirty-one drowned, while twenty- 
four had succeeded in reaching shore. Only seventy- 
six men were left unwounded, and many of them 
had been bruised or otherwise injured. Porter him- 
self had been knocked down by the windage of a 
passing shot. Farragut had been acting as powder- 
boy, messenger, and everything else. While he was 
on the ward-room ladder, going below for gun- 
primers, the captain of the gun directly opposite 
the hatchway was struck full in the face by an 18- 
pounder shot, and tumbled back on him. They fell 
down the hatch together, Farragut being stunned 
for some minutes. Later, while standing by a man 
at the wheel, an old quarter-master named Francis 
Bland, a shot, coming over the foreyard-arm, took 
off the quarter-master's right leg, carrying away at 
the same time one of Farragut' s coat-tails. 

Nothing remained to be done ; and at twenty 
minutes past six the Essex surrendered. The Phoebe 
had lost four killed, and seven wounded ; the Cherub, 



Great Britain and the United States 173 

one killed, and three, including Commander Tucker, 
wounded ; or fifteen all told. 

Captain Porter in his letter spoke very bitterly 
of Hilly ar's violation of the neutrality, and sneered 
at his excessive caution before and during the fight. 
Most American writers, including even Farragut, 
have repeated the denunciations and the sneers. 
Captain Hillyar did, of course, break the neutrality 
laws in circumstances which made their violation 
peculiarly irritating ; for he paid respect to them so 
long as Porter was in good fighting trim, and broke 
them the minute the enemy was crippled and could 
be attacked with safety. But as yet respect for 
international law does not stand on a level with 
respect for the law of one's own land ; and the chief 
thing to be considered is whether the irritation 
caused by the violation of neutrality will compensate 
for the advantage gained. In this case the capture 
of the Essex certainly compensated for any injury 
done to the feeling's of Chili ; and the circumstances 
in which the violation of neutrality took place, 
though not creditable, were no more discreditable 
than those which attended the capture of the Con- 
federate steamer Florida by a Northern cruiser in 
the American Civil War. 

Before the action Hillyar seems to have been 
rather over-cautious, showing, perhaps, too much 
hesitation about engaging the Essex without the 
assistance of the Cherub. The Essex was the faster 
ship ; and this over-caution would have resulted in 



174 Naval Operations of the War Between 



her escape had it not been for the accident which 
caused the loss of her topmast. But, in the action 
itself, Hillyar's conduct was eminently proper. It 
would have been foolish, by coming to close quarters, 
to forego the advantage which bis entire masts and 
better artillery gave him. He treated his prisoners 
with the utmost humanity and kindness. Says Sir 
Howard Douglas, "The action displayed all that 
can reflect honour on the science and admirable con- 
duct of Captain Hillyar and his crew, which, with- 
out the assistance of the Cherub, would have insured 
the same termination. Captain Porter's sneers at 
the respectful distance the Phoebe kept are in fact 
acknowledgments of the ability with which Captain 
Hillyar availed himself of the superiority of his 



arms." 



Following the defeat of the Essex came the 
destruction of the American fur-posts on the 
Columbia, and of what was left of the American 
whaling trade in the South Seas. The Essex had 
made a romantically daring cruise, and had ended 
her career by an exhibition of fighting which, for 
dauntless courage, could not be surpassed. She had 
inflicted much damage on her foes, and had given 
great temporary relief to American interests ; but 
the fact remained that her cruise ended in disaster, 
and in the sweeping of the American flag from the 
Pacific. It is a very old truth, though one which 
many legislators seem slow to learn, that no courage 
and skill on the part of sea-officers can atone for 



Great Britain and the United States 175 

insufficiency in the number, and inefficiency in 
the quality, of ships. To do permanent damage to 
British interests in the Pacific, or anywhere else, the 
Americans would have needed, even aside from a 
fleet of battle-ships, a goodly number of frigates as 
formidable as those with which they won their early 
victories. 



THE WARFARE ON THE LAKES 

' I ''HE forces opposed — Lake Ontario — Defence of Sackett's 
"*■ Harbour — Capture of the Julia and Growler — Chauncey and 
Yeo — The affair at Big Sandy Creek — A contest of shipbuilding 
— Lake Erie — Cutting out of the Caledonia — Barclay and Perry — 
Battle of Lake Erie — American repulse at Macinaw — Capture of 
the Tigress and Scorpion — Cutting-out affair at Port Erie — Lake 
Champlain — Capture of the Growler — Macdonough and Hownie — 
Battle of Plattsburg Harbour. 

BESIDES the ocean ones, both the United 
States and Great Britain possessed inland 
sea-boards; for the boundary line between 
the United States and Canada traversed the extreme 
northern end of Lake Champlain, and went along 
the middle of Lakes Ontario, Erie, Huron, and 
Superior. These inland waters were the scenes of 
important naval engagements — important, that is, 
in their effects, though they were waged between 
diminutive flotillas. East of Lake Champlain prac- 
tically to the ocean, and westward of it nearly to 
Lake Erie, stretched a wooded wilderness, impassa- 
ble for armies. In consequence, the effort to invade 
either territory had to be made in the neighborhood 
of one of the lakes; and the control of the latter 
was important to the success of any offensive opera- 
tions whatsoever, and was indispensable to their suc- 
cess if they were to be conducted on a large scale. 



Naval Operations 177 

The naval warfare on the lakes, therefore, differed 
in several points from the naval warfare 011 the 
ocean. On the lakes, the success of a sea fiVht 
might, and did, determine the success or the failure 
of military operations the outcome of which would 
have great weight upon the result of the war; 
whereas, on the ocean, no success which the Amer- 
ican warships could win could possibly have any 
other than a moral effect. In the next place, on 
the lakes special flotillas had to be constructed, so 
that there the enormous British preponderances in 
sea-might did not prevail. Finally, the crews them- 
selves were made up of more or less heterogeneous 
elements; and there was little difference between 
them in point of skill. 

The country around Lake Champlain was reason- 
ably well settled on both the Canadian and American 
sides, though very remote from the centres of 
population. Both sides of Lake Erie were still 
chiefly wooded wilderness. On Lake Ontario the 
Canadian side had been longer settled, and was 
more thickly populated than the American. More- 
over, it was easier of access, for the great river St. 
Lawrence connected it with the sea. The American 
outposts, however, could keep up their connection 
with the coast districts only through the Mohawk 
Valley, which in its upper part merged into a forest 
that stretched to the lakes unbroken, save by 
occasional clearings and squalid log hamlets, while 
the roads were very bad. On Lake Champlain both 

12 



178 Naval Operations of the War Between 

sides were entirely unprepared. On Lake Ontario 
and Lake Erie the British were very much ahead. 
They had on Lake Ontario a squadron of six ships, 
brigs and schooners, mounting from eight to twenty- 
two guns each ; while the United States had only 
one brig, the Oneida, of sixteen guns. On Lake 
Erie the British had another squadron of six ships 
— brigs and schooners of from two to seventeen 
guns each. 

It is quite impossible, and also quite needless, to 
fully detail the make, rig, armament, and comple- 
ment of all the vessels employed, for some of the 
regularly built warships, and many of the sloops and 
schooners purchased and used as such, changed 
from time to time, not only in their rig, their 
armament, and their complement, but even in their 
names. Drafts of men from the regular navies of 
both nations were soon sent up to the lakes ; but 
there were not enough regular men-of-wars' men to 
man the ships on either side, and the deficiency was 
supplied by the use of Canadian and American lake 
sailors, of militia, and of regular troops. One result 
of this mixed character of the force was that the 
superiority in training, and especially in gunnery, 
shown by the American on the ocean was not shown 
by the American on the lakes. There was little in 
the lake actions to show any difference in skill, as 
regards either the management of the sails or the 
handling of the guns ; and in daring, resolution, and 
courage there was also a practical equality. It was 



Great Britain and the United States 179 

largely a test of the comparative merit and energy 
of the shipwrights. As the operations on the three 
lakes were entirely independent of one another, 
they can be considered separately. 

Lake Ontario was the body of water on which 
the largest squadrons were gathered by both sides, 
and the land in its neighbourhood was the centre of 
operations in the Canadian campaigns ; and, accord- 
ingly, this lake should have been the scene of the 
most important and decisive actions. Such was not 
the case, however, largely owing to the extremely 
cautious nature of the two men who respectively 
commanded the British and the American squadrons 
when they were finally put into fighting trim. 

In 1812, when the war broke out, the Canadian 
squadron of six ships, mounting about eighty guns, 
was under the command of a provincial officer 
named Earle, who was not in the British regular 
service. The American brig Oneida, 16, Lieutenant 
Melancthon Thomas Woolsey, was stationed at 
Sackett's Harbour, the American headquarters on 
the lake, which was protected by a little battery 
mounting one long 32-pounder. On July loth 
Earle's squadron made a feeble attack on the har- 
bour. Woolsey landed some of the Oneida s carron- 
ades, and beat off the attack without much difficulty, 
the long 32 being the gun most used. On the retreat 
of the Canadian flotilla, Woolsey prepared to take 
the offensive. By capture and purchase he procured 



180 Naval Operations of the War Between 

six schooners, in which he mounted twenty-four 
long guns. 

In September, 1812, Captain Isaac Chauncey 
arrived to supplant him in the supreme command. 
A party of ship-carpenters, officers, and seamen, with 
guns, stores, etc., followed him to the harbour ; 
and preparations were at once made to build some 
efficient ships. Meanwhile Chauncey took the lake 
with the little squadron already prepared by Lieu- 
tenant Woolsey. The Canadian flotilla was of 
double his force, but, as already said, it really formed 
only a species of water militia, and was not capable 
of making head against regular seamen of the 
United States navy, just as at the same time the 
American militia proved unable to make head 
against the British regulars on land. Chauncey not 
only chased the Canadian squadron off the lake, but 
also attacked it when it took refuge under the 
batteries of Kingston, which was the naval head- 
quarters on the Canadian side. No serious results 
followed on this attack, any more than on the 
previous attack on Sackett's Harbour ; but it was 
noteworthy that it should have been made at all, 
when the attacking force was so greatly inferior. 

During the winter both sides made preparations 
for the warfare in the spring. The lake service was 
very unpopular with the Americans, so that it 
proved difficult to get men to volunteer for it at all. 
The only way they were persuaded to come was by 
inducing them to serve under officers whom they 



Great Britain and the United States 1 8 1 

liked, and who went with them. In the British 
service this particular difficulty was not encountered, 
as men could be sent wherever the Admiralty 
ordered ; but the demands of the great ocean fleets 
were so stringent that it was hard to spare men for 
the service on these remote inland waters. How- 
ever, by May, 1813, five hundred British seamen 
had been set up under Captain Sir James Lucas Yeo. 
Two ships were being built at Sackett's Harbour by 
the Americans, and two others, of twenty-four guns 
each, by the British at York and Kingston, at 
opposite ends of the lake. Thanks to the energy of 
Mr. Henry Eckford, the head builder, the work on 
the American side was pushed with greater rapidity, 
and larger and somewhat better ships were built. 
In addition to the new ships, Sir James kept the 
five best of the original Canadian squadron, and 
Chauncey kept the Oneida, and purchased a dozen 
schooners. When the two squadrons were completely 
ready, Chauncey had a great superiority in long- 
guns and Sir James in carronades. In smooth 
weather, therefore, when Chauncey could choose his 
distance, he possessed much advantage ; but whereas 
all the British ships were regularly built for men-of- 
war, and sailed well in rough weather, Chauncey's 
schooners were without bulwarks, and were rendered 
so top-heavy by their guns that, in a sea-way, the 
latter could not be used at all. 

In the spring of 1813 the Americans, thanks to 
the energy with which their shipwrights had worked, 



1 82 Naval Operations of the War Between 



were able to take the lake first. On April 27th 
Chauncey's squadron joined in the attack on York, 
whither he convoyed some 1700 troops under the 
immediate command of General Pike. The attack 
was successful : the 24-gun ship, which had been 
almost completed, was burned, many military and 
naval stores were destroyed, and the 10-gun brig 
Gloucester was captured and taken back to Sackett's 
Harbour. 1 

On the 27th of May, Chauncey's squadron again 
took part, with Colonel Scott of the land forces 
(which were conveyed in troop-ships and in the craft 
which had been captured at York), in a successful 
attack on Fort George. 2 The result of this attack 
was that the British troops evacuated the entire 
Niagara frontier, thereby enabling Captain Oliver 
Hazard Perry to get into Lake Erie with five small 
vessels which became the nucleus of the American 
force on that water. Up to that time they had not 
been able to get past the British batteries into the 
lake. 

These attacks on York and Fort George had been 
well executed; but no great fighting capacity was 
needed, the assailants being in very much greater 
force than the assailed. Hitherto the British flotilla 
had not been strong enough to interfere with the 

1 Letter of Chauncey, April 28th, 1813 ; Lossing's « Field-Book 
of the War of 1812,' p. 581. 

2 Chauncey's letter, May 29th, 1813 ; James's 'Military Occur- 
rences,' i. 151. 



Great Britain and the United States 183 



Americans, though the largest American ship was 
still in the dock at Sackett's Harbour; but, at about 
the time when Chauncey's squadron was at Fort 
George, the British ship which had been built at 
Kingston was launched, and this made the British 
squadron superior in strength for the moment. Sir 
James Lucas Yeo, together with Sir George Prevost, 
the Commander-in-Chief of the land forces in Canada, 
decided to strike a blow at Sackett's Harbour, and 
destroy the big American ship there, so ensuring 
their superiority in force on the lake for the re- 
mainder of the season. On May 27th they embarked, 
and on the following day captured some boats which 
were transporting troops to Sackett's Harbour. On 
the 29th Sir George and Sir James made their 
attack on the harbour, which was defended by 
General Jacob Brown. The defences of the port 
consisted merely of the one-gun battery and a block- 
house. The attack resulted in a rather bloody 
repulse, though at one time it seemed on the point 
of succeeding. 1 The attacking force was relatively 
very much weaker than were the Americans at Fort 
George and York, but it was certainly strong enough 
to have succeeded if properly handled ; and the 
failure caused much recrimination between the fol- 
lowers of Sir James and Sir George. 2 

1 The British, however, succeeded in burning the Gloucester, 10, 
which had been captured at York. — W. L. C. 

2 Letter of Adjutant-General Baynes, May 30th, 1813 ; James's 
' Military Occurrences,' i. 173. 



i 84 Naval Operations of the War Between 

During June, Yeo kept the lake undisputed, and 
actively co-operated with the British army in the 
operations which resulted in the humiliating repulse 
of the American General Wilkinson's expedition into 
Canada. In July Chauncey once more took the lake, 
his new ship being ready. Throughout August and 
September the two squadrons were facing one 
another on the lake, each commander manoeuvring 
with a caution that amounted to timidity. In smooth 
water and with all the ships in action, Chauncey 
undoubtedly possessed the superiority in force ; but 
on the 8th of August he received a severe lesson as 
to the unseaworthiness of his schooners, for the two 
largest went to the bottom in a heavy gust of wind, 
their guns breaking loose when they heeled over. 
Moreover, as the ships were of widely different 
types, it was only possible to get them all into 
action by causing one half of the squadron to tow 
the other half. 

On August 10th there occurred the one encounter 
in which either side can be said to have shown any- 
thing approaching to brilliancy ; and all the credit 
must be given to the British. Yeo, after two days 
of cautious manoeuvring, finally made a night attack 
on Chauncey 's squadron. Chauncey, partly owing 
to his own blunder and partly to the blunder of two 
of his schooners, the Julia and Growler, allowed the 
latter to be cut off, and they were both of them 
captured by Yeo, who deserved great praise. 1 

1 Letters of Yeo, Aug. 10th, 1813, and Chauncey, Aug. 13th, 1813. 



Great Britain and the United States 185 

For the next six weeks the skirmishes on the 
lakes continued, each commander in his official 
letters stoutly maintaining that he was chasing the 
other. As a matter of fact, Yeo was determined 
only to fight in heavy, and Chauncey only in light 
weather. On September 11th a long-range skirmish 
occurred at the mouth of the Genesee River. The 
heavy guns of the American schooners gave their 
side the advantage in this affair, but nothing 
decisive resulted. 1 

On September 28th the squadrons again came into 
contact near York Bay. On that occasion the 
Americans were to windward ; and Chauncey at last 
made up his mind to try a real fight. But Yeo 
succumbed with very little resistance. The American 
vessels suffered hardly at all. Chauncey led his 
squadron in the Pike, much the heaviest vessel in 
either squadron. Yeo's ship, the Wolfe, speedily 
had her main and mizen topmasts shot away; 
whereupon Yeo crowded all sail forward, and hastily 
got out of the combat, leaving his retreat to be 
covered by the Royal George, Captain William Howe 
Mulcaster. Mulcaster luffed across the Wolfe s stern, 
and stood the brunt of the action until his commo- 
dore was in safety, when he himself followed suit, 
having lost his fore topmast. For an hour the 
American ships followed, and then relinquished the 
pursuit when the British were running into the 
entirely undefended port of Burlington Bay, whence 

1 Letters of Yeo, Sept. 12th, 1813, and Chauncey, Sept. 13th, 1813. 



1 86 Naval Operations of the War Between 



escape would have been impossible. 1 The only loss 
inflicted by the British guns had been to the Amer- 
ican schooner TomjiJcins, under Lieutenant Bolton 
Fitch, who shared with Captain Mulcaster what 
there was of glory in the day. The fight, or skir- 
mish, such as it was, was decisive in so far as 
concerned any further attempts by Yeo to keep the 
lake that season, for thereafter his squadron remained 
in Kingston, part of the time blockaded by Chaun- 
cey. But Chauncey deserved no credit for the action. 
He possessed an undoubted superiority in force, and 
his opponents made very little resistance, so that 
the victory was cheap ; and his conduct in abandon- 
ing the pursuit and thereby losing the fruits of the 
victory was inexplicable. He did not order his 
swifter vessels to cast off the slower ones which they 
were towing, so he could not overtake the fleeing 
enemy; and he did not follow them into the open 
roadstead where they sought refuge. He afterwards 
alleged that he feared to make the attack in Bur- 
lington Bay lest the wind should blow up to a gale 
and drive both squadrons ashore ; and that he hoped 
to be able to make another attack at a more suitable 
time. Such excuses simply serve to mark the 
difference between the commander who allows 
caution to degenerate into irresolution, and the bold 

1 Letter of Chauncey, Sept. 2Sth, 1813; Brenton, ii. 503. Un- 
fortunately, the British Admiralty had at that time adopted the 
rule of not publishing official accounts of defeats, so there is no 
printed letter of Yeo's. 



Great Britain and the United States 187 

leader of men. Chauncey had missed the great 
opportunity of his life. 

In 1814 the contest degenerated into one of ship- 
building merely. The shipwrights under Yeo and 
Chauncey began to build huge frigates and to lay 
down battleships, while the schooners were no longer 
included in the cruising squadrons. * Chauncey had 
recaptured the Julia and the Growler in a successful 
attack upon some British transports. The Growler, 
however, was again captured on May 3rd, 1814, 
when Yeo, who took the lake first, began a success- 
ful attack on Oswego, 2 the British troops being 
under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Fischer. 3 
Yeo then blockaded Sackett's Harbour. On May 
30th he sent an expedition of six boats with seven 
guns and one hundred and eighty men, under Com- 
manders Stephen Popham and Francis Brockell 
Spilsbury, to attack an American convoy under 
Captain Woolsey which was bringing up guns and 
cables for the new American frigates. Woolsey ran 

1 On April 15th, there were launched, by the British, at Kingston, 
the Prince Regent, 58, and the Princess Charlotte, 42. On May 1st 
the Americans, at Sackett's Harbour, launched the Superior, 62, and 
on June 11th, the Mohawk, 48. — W. L. C. 

2 In the capture of Oswego, the British lost 18 killed and 64 
wounded, among the former being Captain William Holtoway, R.M., 
and among the latter Captain William Howe Mulcaster, Commander 
Stephen Popham, and Lieutenant Charles William Griffith Griffin. 
The American loss was 6 killed, 38 wounded, and 25 missing. 
Three schooners and seven guns were carried away by the victors, 
and a schooner and six guns were destroyed. — W. L. C. 

8 Yeo's letter, May 17th, 1814. 



1 88 Naval Operations of the War Between 

into Big Sandy Creek, eight miles from the harbour, 
where he was joined by some militia and a company 
of light artillery, under Major Appling. The British 
force was absurdly inadequate for the duty to which 
it was assigned ; Americans had every advantage of 
position, and outnumbered the attacking party. 
Woolsey and Appling arranged an ambush, and, 
with the loss of only one man slightly wounded, 
killed 1 or captured the entire body of assailants. 2 

On July 6th Yeo raised the blockade, and, for six 
weeks, nothing was done except that Lieutenant 
Francis Gregory, U.S. N., twice led daring and suc- 
cessful cutting-out expeditions, in one of which he 
captured a British gunboat, and in the other de- 
stroyed a 14-gun schooner which was nearly ready 
for launching. In August, Commodore Chauncey's 
vessels having been built, Captain Yeo in his turn 
promptly retreated to port, where he was blockaded. 
The difference in force against Yeo was about 15 
per cent., and he declined to fight with these odds 
against him. A little later, in October, bis two- 
decker, the Prince Regent, 58, being completed, Yeo 

1 The attacking party consisted of 180 seamen and Royal Marines. 
It lost 18 killed and 50 badly wounded, among the latter being Lieu- 
tenants Thomas S. Cox and Patrick M'Veagh, R.M. Popham's 
official letter ended : " The exertions of the American officers of the 
rifle corps commanded by Major Appling, in saving the lives of 
many of the officers and men whom their own men and the Indians 
were devoting to death, were conspicuous, and claim our warmest 
gratitude."— W. L. C. 

2 Letters of Woolsey and Appling, June 1st and May 30th, 
1814. 



Great Britain and the United States 189 

in his turn took the lake ; and the equally cautious 
Chauncey promptly retired to Sackett's Harbour. 

Chauncey varied the game by quarreling with 
General Brown, alleging that the latter was making 
a " sinister attempt " to subordinate the navy to the 
army. 1 He insisted — wherein he was quite right 
— that his proper objective was the enemy's fleet, 
and that he could best serve the army by destroying 
the British vessels. This was true enough ; but the 
timid and dilatory tactics employed by both Chaun- 
cey and Yeo were such as to render it certain that 
neither would ever inflict a serious blow on the other, 
for neither would fight unless the odds were largely 
in his favour ; and when such was the case, he could 
not persuade his opponent to meet him ; so that 
the best either could do was to assist the army in 
the way against which Chauncey protested. Both 
Chauncey and Yeo were good organisers : each in 
turn assisted the land forces on his side more or less 
by getting control of the lake ; but, towards the end, 
the contest became almost farcical, for it was one of 
shipbuilding merely, and the minute either party 
completed a new ship the other promptly retired 
into harbour until able in turn to complete a larger 
one. 

On Lake Erie the course of events was very dif- 
ferent, for the commanders on that sheet of water 
displayed none of the extreme and timid caution 

1 Niles, vii. 12, vi. 



190 Naval Operations of the War Between 

which characterised the two commodores on Lake 
Ontario. 

At the outbreak of the war the British squadron 
on Lake Ontario consisted of the Queen Charlotte, 
16, Lady Prevost, 12, Hunter, 10, Caledonia, 2, Little 
Belt, 2, and Chippeway, 2. These were all manned 
by Canadians, and, like the vessels on Lake Ontario, 
were not part of the British regular Navy, but 
formed a species of water militia. The American 
navy was not represented on Lake Erie at all ; but 
Hull's army at Detroit had fitted out a small brig, 
the Adams, armed with six 6-pounders, which fell 
into the hands of the British when Hull and his 
army were captured by the gallant British General 
Brock. The Detroit, ex Adams, was then put in 
charge of Lieutenant Rolette, R.N., assisted by a 
boatswain, and was provided with a crew of fifty-six 
men. She was in company with the Caledonia, a 
small brig mounting two guns, with a crew of twelve 
Canadians under Mr. Irving. In all the fighting on 
the upper lakes the bulk of the British crews was 
composed of Canadians and of British soldiers ; 
whereas on Lake Ontario the ships were manned by 
British sailors from the fleet. 

The Detroit and the Caledonia, carrying a very 
valuable cargo of furs and about forty American 
prisoners, moved down the lake, and on October 7th, 
1812, anchored under the guns of the British Fort 
Erie. 

Commander Jesse D. Elliott, U.S.N., had already 



Great Britain and the United States 191 

been sent to Lake Erie to construct a naval force. 
On the very day on which the two brigs came to 
anchor under the British fort the first detachment of 
the American seamen, fifty-one in number, arrived 
at Black Rock, on the American side, where Elliott 
was stationed. They had no arms ; but sabres, 
pistols, and muskets were supplied by the com- 
mander of the land forces, who also detailed seventy 
soldiers under Captain Towsen to act with Elliott, 
the total force being 124. 1 On the 9th, Elliott, 
acting with great promptness and decision, left in 
two large boats, one under his own command, the 
other under Towsen, intending to cut out the British 
vessels. After two hours' rowing the boats reached 
the brigs. Elliott took his own boat alongside the 
Detroit and boarded her before the surprised crew 
knew their danger, though there was a scuffie in 
which one American was killed and one wounded. 
The noise roused the Canadians in the Caledonia, 
and they made more resistance to the other boat. 
However, it was too late, and the Caledonia was 
carried with a rush, all twelve of the Canadians 
being cut down or made prisoners. Five of the 
Americans were killed or wounded. The Caledonia 
was brought back in safety to the American side, 
but the Detroit had to be destroyed. 

This ended the naval operations of 1812 on Lake 
Erie, except that the American Commander Angus, 
with eighty sailors, took part in one of the abortive 

1 Letter of Elliott, Oct. 5th, 1812 ; Lossing, p. 385. 



192 Naval Operations of the War Between 

attacks made by the American General Smith on 
some of the British batteries. Late in the winter 
Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry arrived and took 
command. 

Commander Robert Heriot Barclay (actg.), R.N., 
was appointed commander of the British forces on 
Lake Erie, in May, 1813. He began to build a 
20-gun ship at Amherstburgh. Some seventy sailors 
from the British Navy were sent to him, and there 
were about twice that number of Canadian sailors 
already in the flotilla. The remainder, at least 
half, of his men were soldiers sent from the British 
army on shore. 

Perry began the construction of two 20-gun brigs 
at Presqu'isle, now Erie. Over one-half of the men 
who manned his squadron were seamen from the 
regular Navy on the Atlantic coast ; about a third 
were soldiers and marines ; and about a tenth were 
volunteers from among the frontiersmen around the 
lake. 

The crews and vessels on both sides were of the 
order of makeshifts, although the splendid courage 
and efficiency with which the men fought was a 
sufficient proof that there was no difficulty in 
bringing such material up to the highest standard ; 
for the British and American seamen from the ocean, 
the American and Canadian frontiersmen and lake 
sailors, and the soldiers from both armies, who 
formed the crews, offered fine fighting stuff. 

The lake vessels were very much shallower than 



Great Britain and the United States 193 

those used for the deep seas. Their tonnage was 
estimated arbitrarily, on the supposition that, like 
the ordinary ocean vessels, they were deep in a 
given proportion to their length and breadth. If 
allowance were made for the shallowness of the lake 
vessels, their tonnage would be of course very much 
less. Thus, making such allowance, the British 20- 
gun ship built by Barclay, which he christened the 
Detroit, was of only 305 tons, while, if estimated in 
the usual manner, it was of 490. The two brigs 
Lawrence, and Niagara, which Perry was building, 
were similarly of either 300 or 480 tons. However, 
the tonnage was really a matter of small moment 
in war vessels, except to indicate the size above the 
water-line, for they carried no cargoes ; so that the 
tonnage of the lake vessels may as well be reckoned 
as though it were a case of ordinary ocean vessels. 
Reckoning thus, Barclay's second ship, the Lady 
Charlotte, was of 400 tons; his third, the Lady 
Prevost, of 230 ; and his fourth, the Hunter, of 
180 tons. On the American side the Caledonia, like 
the LIunter, was of 180 tons, and the largest 
schooner, the Ariel, of 112. The other schooners 
and sloops on both sides were of from 70 to 95 tons 
apiece. 

The two American brigs and the British ship 
were completed in August. Until their completion 
the British squadron was superior in force, and 
Barclay kept up a close blockade of the harbour of 
Erie, where there was a bar having on it less than 

13 



194 Naval Operations of the War Between 

seven feet of water. This bar prevented the British 
from going in, but it also prevented the two Amer- 
ican brigs from getting out so long as the enemy 
was off the harbour. Finally Barclay, early in 
August, was obliged to be away for a couple of 
days ; and Perry by great exertions managed to get 
the two brigs across the bar without their guns, 
which were put in later. ! Soon afterwards the 
Detroit joined Barclay's squadron, and the captains 
made ready for battle. 

Barclay's squadron was so inferior in force that 
he would not have been justified in risking action if 
it could have been avoided. But there was no 
alternative. The control of Lake Erie virtually 
decided the control of the disputed territory around 
the Detroit River. Moreover, Barclay was so short 
of provisions that he had to bring matters to a head. 
On September 10th, 1813, the two squadrons came 
together. 

Perry had nine vessels, the brigs Laivrence, Niag- 
ara, and Caledonia, the schooners Ariel, Scorpion, 
Somers, Porcupine, and Tigress, and the sloop Trippe. 
Their total tonnage was 1671, and their total crews 
amounted to 532 men ; but sickness had been so 
prevalent that only about 416 were fit for duty. In 
his vessels fifty-four guns were mounted, fourteen of 
which were on pivots. In the action his broadside 
weight of metal was 896 pounds ; 288 of which were 
thrown from long-guns. The Laivrence and Niagara 

1 Cooper, ii. 389. 



1 



Great Britain and the United States 195 

were large men-of-war brigs, armed in the usual 
manner with eighteen 32-pr. carronades, and two 
long 12's apiece. The smaller vessels, in addition 
to two or three light carronades, carried long 32' s, 
24's, and 12's. Barclay's squadron consisted of six 
vessels, the ships Detroit and Queen Charlotte, the 
brig Hunter, the schooners Lady Prevost and Chip- 
peway, and the sloop Little Belt. The aggregate 
tonnage was 1460 ; the aggregate of the crews 
summed up to about 440 men. 1 The total number 
of guns was sixty-three, five being on pivots. The 
total broadside weight was 459 pounds, of which 
195 were from long guns ; for many of Barclay's 
guns were of very small calibre, including long 2's, 
4's, and 6's, and 12-pr. carronades. 

The difference in number of men between the 
two squadrons was not very material. Both had 
scratch crews, made up of regular seamen, of lake 
seamen, of British regulars, and a few Indians in 
Barclay's squadron, and American militia and a 
few negroes in Perry's. In tonnage Perry was 
superior by just about what would be indicated by 
the possession of three extra schooners. The de- 
cisive difference was in the armament. In weight 
of broadside the superiority of the Americans in 
long-gun metal was nearly as three to two, and in 
carronade metal it was greater than two to one. 

1 James (vi. 250, ed. 1837) puts the numerical strength of Bar- 
clay's command at only 345 men, including 80 Canadians, and 240 
soldiers of the Newfoundland and 41st regiments. — W. L. C. 



196 Naval Operations of the War Between 

The ship Detroit mounted chiefly long guns, and was 
on the whole probably rather superior to either of 
Perry's big brigs. The Queen Charlotte was greatly 
inferior to either. The smaller vessels lacked the 
long guns which made the small American vessels 
formidable. In smooth water and at a distance 
the long guns of Perry's smaller vessels gave his 
squadron a very marked advantage ; in a brisk 
breeze his two big brigs should have been almost a 
match for the entire British squadron. 

When, at daylight on September 10th, Perry dis- 
covered Barclay's squadron he was at anchor at 
Put-In Bay. As soon as the ships were made out, 
Perry got under way and bore down toward them, 
having the weather gage. Barclay lay to in close 
column, the Qhippeivay ahead, followed by the 
Detroit, the Hunter, the Queen Charlotte, the Lady 
Prevost, and the Little Belt. 1 Perry went down 
with the wind off his port beam, and made the 
attack in column ahead obliquely. The Erie and 
Scorpion led the line a little ahead, and on the 
weather bow, of Perry's ship the Lawrence. Next 
came the Caledonia, and after her the Lawrence s 
twin sister, the Niagara, under Captain Jesse D. 
Elliott, whom Perry had superseded, and w T ho 

1 The British vessels were commanded as follows : Chippeway, 
Master's Mate J. Campbell ; Detroit, Commander Robert Heriot 
Barclay ; Hunter, Lieutenant George Bignell ; Queen Charlotte, Com- 
mander Robert Finnis (acting) ; Lady Prevost, Lieutenant Edward 
Wise Buchan. The commander of the Little Belt is unnamed in 
Barclay's letter of September 12th to Yeo. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 197 



showed by his actions that he felt no particular 
zeal in helping Perry to gain glory. The Niagara 
was followed by the Somen, the Porcupine, the 
Tigress, and the Trippe in that order. 2 

The winds were light and baffling, and, as the 
American ships came down, they formed a strag- 
gling and irregular line which approached at an 
angle of about fifteen degrees to the line of Bar- 
clay's squadron, which was in much better and 
more compact order. At a quarter to twelve the 
Detroit opened the action with her long 24's. Her 
first shot fell short : her second crashed through 
the Lawrence ; whereupon the Scorpion replied with 
her long 32. Ten minutes after the Detroit had 
first fired, the Lawrence, which had shifted her port 
bow-chaser into the place of one of the carronades 
on her starboard side, opened with both her long 
12's. At noon she tried her carronades, but the 
shot fell short. Shortly afterwards the action be- 
came general on both sides, though the rearmost 
American vessels were still so far away that they 
were themselves not exposed to any danger at all, 
and only the longest guns occasionally reached. 
The Lawrence was steadily nearing Barclay's line, 
Perry making every effort to close ; but it was half 
an hour after the Detroit had opened before the 

2 Letters of Captain Barclay and Lieutenant Inglis, Sept. 12th 
and 10th, 1813; of Captain Perry, Sept. 11th, 12th, and 13th. 
Lossing gives some valuable matter ; so does Ward in his ' Naval 
Tactics,' and James in his ' Naval Occurrences.' 



198 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Lawrence got to the close quarters necessary for the 
effective use of her carronades. Throughout this 
half -hour Barclay's leading ships had concentrated 
their fire on Perry's vessel, and so the Lawrence had 
suffered a good deal ; though the schooners Scorpion 
and Ariel had been pounding away with their long 
guns to help her. 

For some time, therefore, the action at the head * 
of the line was in favour of the British. The sides 
of the Detroit were dotted with marks of shot that 
did not penetrate, partly because of the long range, 
partly because the Americans in this action seemed 
to show a tendency to overload their carronades. 
There was a carronade in the Scorpion which upset 
down the hatchway as soon as it got hot ; and one 
of the long guns on the Ariel burst. On the other 
side, the Detroit had her own difficulties. There 
were no locks for her guns, thanks to the hurry 
with which she had been prepared, and they had to 
be discharged by flashing pistols at the touch-holes. 
Nevertheless, Barclay fought her to perfection, and 
the trained artillerists among his seamen and soldiers 
aimed the guns so well that Perry had his hands 
full. The Caledonia came down beside the Lawrence, 
helping to divert the attention of the Hunter and 
the Queen Charlotte from her. But Elliott handled 
the Niagara poorly. He did not follow Perry to 
close quarters, but engaged the Queen Charlotte at 
a distance which rendered the carronades of both 
vessels useless. In fact, the only effective fighting 



Great Britain and the United States 199 

at the rear of the lines was that done by the four 
American gun vessels astern of the Niagara. Each 
of these had a long 32 or 24, of which, on such 
smooth seas, she could make good use against the 
Lady Prevost, Queen Charlotte, and Hunter; the 
latter having an absurd armament of little guns 
which threw a broadside of thirty pounds all told. 
Both Commander Finnis, of the Queen Charlotte, 
and his first lieutenant, Thomas Stokoe, were killed 
early in the action. Her next in command, the 
Canadian Lieutenant Irvine, finding that he could 
make no effective answer to the long guns of the 
schooners, drew forward and joined in the attack 
on the Laurence at close quarters. The Niagara 
was left practically without any antagonist, and, at 
the end of the line, the fight became one at long 
range between the Somers, Tigress, Porcupine, and 
Trippe on the one side, and the Lady Prevost and 
Little Belt on the other. The Lady Prevost' s arma- 
ment consisted chiefly of 12-pr. carronades. She 
made a noble fight, but such an armament at long 
range in smooth water was utterly useless against 
the heavy guns of the schooners. Her commander, 
Lieutenant Buchan, and her first lieutenant, Francis 
Rolette, were both seriously wounded, and she was 
greatly cut up, and began to fall to leeward. 

The fight at the head of the line was waged 
with bloody obstinacy between the Scorpion, Ariel, 
Laurence, and Chesapeake, on the one hand, and the 
Caledonia, Detroit, Queen Charlotte, and Chippeway 



200 Naval Operations of the War Between 

on the other. Instead of pairing in couples, the 
ships on each side seemed to choose the largest 
opponents as special targets. The Americans con- 
centrated their fire on the Queen Charlotte and 
Detroit ; while the British devoted their attention 
mainly to the Lawrence, which had already suffered 
severely while working down to get within range of 
her carronades. The Queen CJiarlotte was soon al- 
most disabled. The Detroit was also pounded prac- 
tically to a standstill, suffering especially from the 
raking fire of the gunboats. Barclay was fighting 
her himself with the utmost gallantry ; but he was 
so badly wounded that he was at last obliged to 
quit the deck. His first lieutenant, John Garland, 
was also wounded mortally ; but Lieutenant George 
Inglis, to whom the command was turned over, 
continued the fight as gamely as ever. 

Meanwhile the Lawrence was knocked to pieces 
by the combined fires of her adversaries. Of the 
one hundred and three men who had been fit for 
duty when she began the action, eighty-three were 
killed or wounded. As the vessel was so shallow, 
the ward-room, which was used as the cockpit into 
which the wounded were taken, was mainly above 
water, and the shots came through it continually. 
Many of the wounded were killed or maimed while 
under the hands of the surgeons. The first lieu- 
tenant, Yarnall, was hit three times, but refused to 
leave the deck, and fought the ship to the last. 
The only other lieutenant on board, Brooks, of the 



Great Britain and the United States 201 

marines, was mortally wounded. Every brace and 
bowline was shot away, and the hull was so riddled 
that it looked like a sieve. One by one the guns on 
the engaged side were dismounted, while the men 
were shot down until they could not man even the 
guns that were left. However, the slaughter of 
four-fifths of his crew before his eyes did not daunt 
Perry in the least. When there were no men left 
to serve the last three or four guns, he called down 
through the skylight for one of the surgeon's assist- 
ants. The call was repeated and obeyed, until all 
those officers had been used up. Then he shouted 
down, " Can any of the wounded pull a rope ? " 
and three or four of them hobbled up on deck to 
help him lay the last guns. Finally, Perry himself 
was left with only the purser and chaplain, and by 
their aid he fired a final shot ; and, immediately 
afterwards, the gun which he had used, the only 
one left, was disabled. 

Meanwhile Mr. Turner in the Caledonia, having 
put his helm up, had passed the Lawrence and run 
into the British line, where he engaged at half 
pistol-shot distance, though his little brig was abso- 
lutely without quarters. 

Perry's vessel lay an unmanageable hulk on the 
water, while the shot ripped through her sides, and 
there was not a gun that could be fired in return ; 
but Perry had not the slightest intention of giving 
up the fight. He had gone into the battle flying on 
his flag Lawrence's dying words, " Don't give up the 



202 Naval Operations of the War Between 

ship " ; and he intended to live up to the text. The 
Niagara was at that time a quarter of a mile to 
windward of the Lawrence on her port-beam. She 
was steering for the head of Barclay's line, and was 
almost uninjured, having taken very little part in 
the combat, and never having been within a dis- 
tance that rendered her carronades of any use. 
Perry instantly decided to shift his broad pennant 
to her. Leaping into a boat with his brother and 
four seamen, he rowed to the fresh brig, having 
literally been hammered out of the Lawrence by the 
pounding which he had received for two hours and 
a half. As soon as he reached the Niagara, he 
sent Elliott astern to hurry up the three rearmost 
schooners ; for the sloop Trippe, on her own account, 
had steered straight for the British line, and was 
very near the Caledonia. The Laivrence, having but 
fourteen sound men left, struck her colours ; but the 
action began again before possession could be taken 
of her, and she drifted astern out of the fight. At 
a quarter to three the schooners had closed, and 
Perry bore up to break Barclay's line, the powerful 
brig to which he had shifted his broad pennant 
being practically unharmed, as indeed were his 
rearmost gun-vessels. 

The British ships had fought till they could fight 
no longer. The two smallest, the Chippeway and 
Little Belt, were not much damaged ; but the other 
four were too disabled either to fight or to man- 
oeuvre effectively so as to oppose fresh antagonists. 



Great Britain and the United States 203 



However, they answered as best they could, with 
great guns and musketry, as the Niagara stood 
down and broke the British line, firing her port 
battery into the Chippeway, Little Belt, and Lady 
Prevost, and her starboard battery into the Detroit, 
Queen Charlotte, and Hunter, raking on both sides. 
The Detroit and Charlotte had been so cut up aloft, 
almost every brace and stay being shot away, that 
they could not tack, and tried to wear; but they 
fell foul of one another, and the Niagara luffed 
athwart their bows, firing uninterruptedly, while, 
under their sterns, the Caledonia and the schooners 
stationed themselves so close that some of their 
grape-shot, passing over the British vessels, rattled 
through Perry's spars. The Lady Prevost had sagged 
to leeward, an unmanageable wreck. Barclay had 
done everything in the power of man to do. The 
first and second in command of every one of his six 
vessels had been either killed or wounded ; and at 
three o'clock his flag was struck. The Chippeivay 
and Little Belt tried to escape, but were overtaken 
and brought-to by the Trippe and the Scorpion, the 
commander of the latter, Mr. Stephen Champlin, 
firing the last shot of the battle, as he had likewise 
fired the first on the American side. 

None of the American ships had suffered severely, 
excepting the Lawrence, to whose share over two- 
thirds of the total loss had fallen. In breaking the 
line, however, the Niagara had suffered somewhat ; 
and the Caledonia, Ariel, Scorpion, and Trippe had 



204 Naval Operations of the War Between 

come in for some of the pounding. All told, twenty- 
seven men had been killed and ninety-six wounded, 
three mortally. The British loss amounted to forty- 
one killed and ninety-four wounded, chiefly in the 
Detroit and Queen Charlotte. Barclay's letter is a 
model of its kind for generosity and manliness, 
stating matters precisely as they were. He needed 
no justification, for the mere recital of the facts was 
proof enough of his gallantry and skill. In his 
letter he stated, " Captain Perry has behaved in the 
most humane and attentive manner, not only to 
myself and officers, but to all the wounded." * 

The victory was decisive, giving the Americans 
complete control of the upper lakes ; and it was 
very important in its effects, putting an end to any 
effort to wrest from them the supremacy on the 
western frontier. Perry and the American ship- 
wrights are entitled to high praise for the energy 
and forethought with which they prepared the 
squadron. Moreover, Perry showed the most de- 
termined courage and great fertility in resource, 
which enabled him not merely to destroy, but also 
to annihilate his enemy ; and he deserved the credit 
he received. Both sides displayed the same dogged 
courage ; but, on the whole, Barclay and his captains 

1 Lieutenant Robert Heriot Barclay had his Commander's com- 
mission confirmed on November 19th, 1813, ere news of the disaster 
reached the Admiralty. He was tried at Portsmouth for the loss of 
his flotilla on September 16th, 1S14, and was "most fully and 
honourably acquitted." He was posted on October 14th, 1824, and 
died on May 12, 1837. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 205 

unquestionably showed superior skill in the actual 
fighting. The disposition of the American line was 
such that it was brought into action by fragments. 
Captain Elliott did not fight the Niagara well ; and 
four of the American gunboats were kept so far 
astern as to prevent their being of much use at first, 
so that the brunt of the action fell on the Lawrence, 
even during the early part of the action, when the 
fighting was at long range and her carronades were 
useless. Perry, towards the end, showed ability to 
use his force to the best advantage, and his own 
ship was faultlessly handled and fought ; but some 
of his captains did not support him, nor one an- 
other, as they should have done. Whether through 
his fault or through his misfortune, he failed to get 
from them the full co-operation which he should 
have received. 

Barclay's dispositions, on the contrary, were fault- 
less ; and the British captains supported one an- 
other, so that the disparity in damage done was not 
equal to the disparity in force. Barclay could not 
arrange his ships so as to be superior to his antag- 
onists. In any circumstances, whether in rough 
water or in smooth, the Americans were the more 
formidable in force. All that he could do he did. 
Perry, in making his attack, had shown the same 
headlong energy as he had previously shown in pre- 
paring his squadron, and he behaved with that 
indomitable determination not to be beaten, than 
which, after all, there is no greater merit in any 



206 Naval Operations of the War Between 

fighter, afloat or ashore. The superior force of the 
Americans had been brought into action in such a 
manner that the head of the line was crushed by the 
inferior force opposed; but, when literally ham- 
mered out of his own ship, Perry had brought up 
her powerful twin sister, and overwhelmed the shat- 
tered hostile squadron, pushing the victory with 
such energy that all the opposing ships were cap- 
tured. In other words, Providence, as so often 
before, declared in favour of the heavier battalions, 
when those battalions were handled with energy and 
resolution. The victory was due to heavy metal, as 
in many another sea fight between far greater forces. 
Like the victories of La Hougue and of Camperdown, 
waged between huge armadas, this combat between 
the little lake flotillas shows, what certainly ought 
not to need showing, that energy and forethought in 
preparing a superior force, and energy and courage 
in using it, will ensure victory if the skill and 
bravery on both sides be equal, or even if there be a 
slight advantage in skill on the part of the enemy. 

The destruction of Barclay's squadron left the 
Americans undisputed masters of the upper lakes ; 
but exactly as they had begun their career by 
a cutting-out expedition, which enabled them to 
acquire the nucleus of their squadron, so now they, 
in their turn, suffered by a couple of cutting-out 
expeditions, in which the British performed, at their 
expense, two really brilliant feats, though on a 
small scale. Neither feat was of weight enough to 



Great Britain and the United States 207 

interfere with the American supremacy, but both 
exploits reflected great credit on the victors, and 
caused much mortification to the vanquished. 

In July, 1814, Captain Arthur Sinclair, U.S.N., 
sailed into Lake Huron with five of Perry's smaller 
vessels. He attacked the fort at Macinaw, but was 
repulsed, and then destroyed the British blockhouse 
on the Nattagawassa, together with an armed 
schooner; 1 but the crew of the schooner, under 
Lieutenant Miller Worsley, R.N., escaped up the 
river. Sinclair then departed for Lake Erie, leav- 
ing the Scorpion, under Lieutenant Turner, and the 
Tigress, under Sailing Master Champlin, to keep a 
watch on the river. The two commanders grew 
very careless, and paid the penalty ; for the Indians 
brought word to the British that the two American 
vessels were in the habit of stationing themselves 
far apart, and it was at once resolved to attempt 
their capture. Accordingly, the effort was made 
with four boats, one manned by twenty seamen, 
under Lieutenant Miller Worsley, the other three 
by seventy-two soldiers, under Lieutenants Bulger, 
Armstrong, and Raderhurst of the army. Two 
light guns accompanied the expedition. After 
twenty-four hours' search the party discovered one 
vessel, the Tigress, late on the evening of September 
3rd. It was very dark, and the British were not 
detected until they had come within fifty yards. 

1 This schooner was the Nancy, belonging to the North- West 
Company. — W. L. C. 



2o8 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Champlin at once fired his long-gun at them ; but, 
before it could be reloaded, the four boats had run 
him on board, two on the starboard and two on the 
port side. The gunboat had no boarding nets, and 
the assailants outnumbered the crew by more than 
three to one, but there was a sharp struggle before 
she was carried. Of the twenty-eight men on board 
her, three were killed and five wounded, including 
Champlin himself, whose hurt was very severe. Of 
the assailants, the loss was still heavier, for it in- 
cluded two killed and a dozen wounded, one of 
whom was Lieutenant Bulger. The latter showed 
himself prompt to recognise courage in others, in 
addition to exhibiting it by his own acts. In his 
letter he wrote, " The defence of this vessel 
did credit to her officers, who were all severely 
wounded." * 

Forty-eight hours afterwards the Scorpion rejoined 
her consort, entirely ignorant of what had occurred. 
She anchored two miles from the Tigress, and, in 
the dawn, the latter, with the American ensign and 
pennant still flying, ran her on board. The first 
notice her crew of thirty men had was a volley 
which killed two, and w r ounded two others ; and she 
was carried without resistance. No one had time 
even to seize his arms. 2 



1 Letter of Lieut. A. H. Bulger, Sept. 7th, 1814. 

2 For these services Lieutenant Miller Worsley was made a Com- 
mander on July 13th, 1815. He died, still in that rank, on May 2nd, 
1835. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 209 

This was an exceedingly creditable and plucky 
enterprise. At almost the same time an even more 
daring cutting-out expedition took place at the foot 
of Lake Erie. The three American schooners, Ohio, 
jSomers, and Porcupine, each with thirty men, under 
Lieutenant Conkling, were anchored at the outlet of 
the lake to flank the works at Port Erie. Several 
British vessels * were lying off the fort in the Ontario 
waters, and their officers determined to make an 
effort to carry the American gunboats by surprise. 
On the night of August 12th Commander Alexander 
Dobbs and Lieutenant Copleston Radcliffe, with 
seventy-five seamen and marines, made the attempt. 2 
Aided by some militia, they carried a gig and five 
bateaux twenty-eight miles overland to Lake Erie, 
launched them, and rowed toward the gunboats. At 
about midnight the look-out in the JSomers discov- 
ered and hailed them. They answered, " provision 
boat," which deceived the officer on deck, as such 
boats were passing and repassing every night. In 
another moment they drifted across his hawser cut 
his cables and ran him on board. The two men on 
deck were shot down, and, before the others could 
get up, the schooner was captured. In another 
moment the British boats were alongside the Ohio, 

1 Including the Charwell, Commander Alexander Dobbs, Netley, 
Lieutenant Copleston Radcliffe, and Star. — W. L. C. 

2 James, in his ' Naval Occurrences,' gives the best account of 
this expedition ; the American historians touch very lightly on it ; 
precisely as, after the first year of the war, the British authorities 
ceased to publish official accounts of their defeats. 

14 



210 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Lieutenant Conkling's own vessel. The sound of 
the firing had awakened his people, and, disordered 
though they were, they attempted resistance, and 
there was a moment's sharp struggle ; but Conkling 
himself, and the only other officer on board, sail- 
ing master Cally, together with five seamen, were 
shot or cut down, and Dobbs carried the gunboat 
sword in hand. Lieutenant Radcliffe was killed, 
however, and seven British seamen and marines 
were killed or wounded. Dobbs then drifted down 
stream with his two prizes, the Porcupine being too 
demoralised to interfere. It was a very bold and 
successful enterprise, reflecting the utmost credit on 
the victors. 1 

At the beginning of the war the Americans had 
the supremacy on Lake Champlain, possessing two 
little sloops, each mounting eleven small guns, and 
six row-galleys, mounting one gun each, under the 
command of Lieutenant Sidney Smith. On June 
3rd, 1813, Smith took his two sloops to the Sorrel 
River, the outlet of the lake, where he saw three 
British row-galleys, each mounting one long-gun. 
The wind was aft, and he imprudently chased the 
row-galleys down the river to within sight of the 
first British fort. The river was narrow, and the 
infantry at the fort promptly came to the assistance 

1 Alexander Dobbs, born in 1784, was a Commander of Feb- 
ruary Hth, 1814, and was posted on August 12th, 1819. He died 
at Milan in 1827. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 2 1 1 

of the galleys, and began to fire on the sloops from 
both banks. The sloops responded with grape, and 
tried to beat back up the stream, but the current 
was so strong and the wind so light that no head- 
way could be made. The row-galleys turned and 
began to fire with their long 24's, while the light 
guns of the sloops could not reach them in return. 
After three hours' manoeuvring and firing, a shot 
from one of the galleys struck the Eagle under her 
starboard quarter and ripped out a whole plank. 
She sank at once, but in such shoal water that all 
her men got ashore. The Groiuler continued the 
fight alone, but her forestay and main-boom being 
shot away, she became unmanageable, ran ashore, 
and was captured. Of the 112 men on board the 
two sloops, twenty were killed or wounded and the 
rest captured. No one was touched in the galleys, 
but three of the British soldiers ashore were 
wounded by grape. 1 

Captain Thomas Macdonough was in command 
on the lake from that time onwards, and he set to 
work to build some new sloops. Until this was 
done there was nothing to interfere with the British. 
They rechristened the captured Growler and Eagle, 
Chubb and Finch, and with these and three row- 
galleys conveyed an expedition of about one thou- 
sand British troops, under Colonel Murray, which 
destroyed all the barracks and stores at Plattsburg 

1 Letter of Major Taylor (British) to General Stone, June 3rd, 
1S13. 






212 Naval Operations of the War Between 

and at Saranac on the last day of July. Three 
days later Macdonough completed three sloops 1 
which, with his six row-galleys, restored to him 
the command of the lake. Nothing more was done 
during 1813. 

In 1814, however, Lake Champlain became the 
scene of the greatest naval battle of the war. 2 In 
August a British army of eleven thousand men, 
under Sir George Prevost, undertook the invasion 
of New York by advancing along the bank of Lake 

1 President, 12 ; Preble, 7 ; and Montgomery, 9. — W. L. C. 

2 The squadrons engaged in the action on Lake Champlain, 
September 11, 1814 : — 

BRITISH. 



Suips. 


Guns. 


Commanders. 


Confiance 


37 
16 
11 
11 


Commander George Downie. 

„ Daniel Pring. 
Lieutenant James M'Ghie. 

„ William Ilicks. 



12 gunboats or row-galleys, mounting 17 guns and carronades in all. 



AMERICAN. 



Ships. 


Guns. 


Commanders. 


Preble 


26 

20 

17 

7 


Captain Thomas Macdonough. 

,, Robert Henley. 
Lieut.-Com. Stephen Cassin. 



10 gunboats or row-galleys, mounting 16 guns and carronades in all. 

— W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 213 

Champlain. He got as far as the Saranac River, 
where the Americans had thrown up extensive 
earthworks. To cover Prevost's flank it was nec- 
essary that the British squadron on the lake should 
be able to overcome the American squadron. This 
squadron was put under the command of Captain 
George Downie. Both Downie and Macdonousrh 
were forced to build and equip their vessels with 
the utmost speed ; and the two squadrons were 
both very deficient in stores, etc., some of the guns 
of each being without any locks, so that they had 
to be fired by means of pistols flashed at the touch- 
holes. Captain Macdonough took the lake a couple 
of days before his antagonists, and came to anchor 
in Plattsburg Bay. Captain Downie moved out of 
Sorrel River on September 8th ; and on the morning 
of the 11th sailed into Plattsburg Harbour to the 
attack. 1 

The largest vessel of Downie' s squadron was the 
ship Confiance. She was frigate built, of about 
1200 tons' burden, and carried on her main deck 

1 Official letters of Prevost, Macdonough, and Pring. Admiral 
Codrington's ' Memoirs,' i. 3*22. Letter of Midshipman Lea, ' Naval 
Chronicle,' xxxii, 272. Cooper : both his ' History,' and especially 
his two articles in ' Putnam's Magazine.' James's 'History 'and 
' Naval Occurrences.' The various articles in ' Xiles's Register' for 
September and October, 1811. Captain J. H. Ward's ' Manual of 
Naval Tactics.' Lossing's ' Field-book of the War of 1812,' i. 868, 
quoting Admiral Paulding. Navy Dept. MSS. : Letters of Mac- 
donough before the battle : Log-book of the Surprise (Eagle), etc. 
Roosevelt's 'Naval War,' 117, 376. American State Papers, xiv. 
572. 



214 Naval Operations of the War Between 

thirty long 24's. On her poop were two 32-pr. 
carronades, and on her top-gallant forecastle were 
four 32-pr. carronades and a long 24 on a pivot. 
Thanks to having a furnace, she was able to employ 
hot shot in the battle. His next vessel was the 
Linnet, a brig of 350 tons, mounting sixteen long 
12's. The Chubb and the Finch were of about 110 
tons each, carrying eleven light guns apiece. There 
were also twelve row-galleys of from 40 to 70 tons 
each. They carried seventeen guns, long 24's and 
18's, and 32-pr. carronades. The crews aggregated 
from nine hundred to one thousand. 1 In all there 
were sixteen vessels, of about 2400 tons' total 
burden, with a total of ninety-two guns, throwing a 
broadside of 1192 pounds, 660 of which were from 
long guns, and 532 from carronades. 

Macdonough had one heavy corvette, the Sara- 
toga, of 734 tons, carrying eight long 24-pounders, 
and six 42-pr., and twelve 32-pr. carronades; a 
large brig, the Eagle, of about 500 tons, carrying 
eight long 18's and twelve 32-pr. carronades; a 
schooner, the Ticonderoga, 2 about the size of the 
Linnet, carrying eight long 12's, four long 18's, and 
five 32-pr. carronades ; a sloop, the Preble, mounting 
seven light guns, and ten row-galleys of about the 

1 James (vi. 346, ed. 1837), I know not upon what authority 
puts the total of the British crews at 537 ; and he publishes a state- 
ment, which appears to be misleading, of the comparative forces 
engaged. — W. L. C. 

2 She had been a steamer, but her machinery continually got out 
of order, and she was changed to a schooner. 



Great Britain and the United States 215 

same size as the British, and mounting sixteen guns 
— 24's, 18's, and 12's. His aggregate of crews 
amounted to less than nine hundred men. 1 His 
fourteen vessels were of about 2200 tons, with 
eighty-six guns, throwing a broadside of 1194 
pounds, only 480 of which were from long guns. 
In tonnage, number of men in crew, number of guns, 
and weight of metal in broadside, there was no 
great difference ; but Downie possessed one marked 
advantage, for most of his pieces were long guns, 
whereas the weight of the American broadside was 
from carronades. In ordinary circumstances this 
made his flotilla much the stronger. Even under 
the conditions in accordance with which the battle 
was fought, the range was so long that the carron- 
ades could not be used with proper efficiency. 
Downie was almost as much superior in strength to 
Macdonough as Chauncey had been to Ye oon Lake 
Ontario in the summer of 1813, the difference in 
armament of the two squadrons being very similar 
in each case. Macdonough, having the weaker 
force, chose his position with such skill, and exer- 
cised such careful forethought, that he more than 
neutralised the material superiority of his opponents. 
Both the squadrons were makeshifts. The row- 
galleys on both sides were manned chiefly by 
soldiers. The larger vessels, however, were manned 
mainly by sailors from the regular navies, British 
and American. The crews were gathered hastily, 

1 James puts the American force at 950 men. — W. L. C. 



2i 6 Naval Operations of the War Between 

and had little training while on the lake, so that 
they betrayed various shortcomings, especially as 
artillerists, except in the Confiance, where Downie, 
and in the Linnet, where Pring, had the men at the 
highest point of efficiency. The armaments of the 
ships were of the most haphazard description, car- 
ronades and long-guns of different calibres being all 
jumbled together. The vessels were of every kind 
and rig. The Americans had a ship, a brig, a 
schooner, a sloop, and two kinds of row-galleys. 
The British possessed a ship, a brig, two sloops, and 
two kinds of row-galleys. It would have been 
exceedingly difficult for either squadron to undertake 
any kind of manoeuvring in any kind of weather, as 
no two craft were alike in speed or handiness. 
Indeed, in a seaway, the frigate-built Confiance 
would have been a match for Macdonough's whole 
squadron, and the Saratoga, a heavy corvette, for all 
Downie' s squadron except the Confiance. In point 
of fighting capacity the men who manned the two 
squadrons were about equal, for though some of the 
British accounts accuse certain of the British row- 
galleys of cowardice in the fight, the exhibition was 
probably due to the disheartening circumstances of 
seeing the big vessels fail, which, of course, ensured 
the repulse of the open galleys. In some circum- 
stances an engagement on the lake would have 
been very much to Downie's advantage, and would 
have enabled him to make good use of his superiority 
in force ; but Macdonough, a very cool and compe- 



Great Britain and the United States 217 

tent commander, had the advantage of the defensive, 
and utilised it to the full. All he had to do was 
to hold Downie in check, whereas Downie had to 
win a decisive victory if the invasion was to be a 
success. 

Accordingly, Macdonough decided to await the 
attack at anchor in Plattsburg Bay, which is deep, 
and which opens to the southward. The lake being 
long and narrow, and running north and south, the 
winds usually blow up or down it, while the current 
sets northward toward the outlet. All the vessels 
were flat and shallow, and beat to windward with 
difficulty. In September, there are often sudden 
and furious gales which make it risky for any 
squadron to lie outside the bay until the wind suits ; 
whereas, inside the bay, the breezes are apt to be 
light and baffling. A wind which would enable 
Downie to come down the lake would render it 
difficult for him to beat up the bay; and Mac- 
donough made his arrangements accordingly. He 
moored his vessels in a north and south line, out of 
range of the shore batteries, and just south of the 
outlet of the Saranac. The head of his line was so 
close to shore as to render it very difficult to turn it. 
To the south a flank attack was prevented by a 
shoal, on which was a small island containing a 
hospital, and mounting one 6-pounder gun. The 
Eagle lay to the north : then came the Saratoga, the 
Ticonderoga, and the Preble, all at anchor, while 
the galleys, under their sweeps, formed a second line 



2i 8 Naval Operations of the War Between 

forty yards back. By this arrangement it was 
rendered impossible for Downie to double the line, 
or to anchor completely out of reach of the Ameri- 
can carronades ; and his attack had to be made 
by standing in bows on. Macdonough realised 
thoroughly that he had to deal with a foe of superior 
physical force, and of great courage and seamanship, 
and he made every preparation possible. Nothing 
was left to chance. Not only were his vessels pro- 
vided with springs, but also with anchors to be used 
astern in any emergency, so that they might shift 
their broadsides when necessary. If one battery 
was knocked to pieces he intended to use the other. 
Macdonough further prepared the Saratoga by lay- 
ing a kedge broad off on either bow, with a hawser 
and preventer hawser, hanging in bights under 
water, leading from each quarter to the kedge on 
that side. 

The morning of September 11th opened with a 
light breeze from the north-east, and Downie 1 
weighed anchor at daylight, and came down the 
lake with the wind nearly aft, while Macdonough's 
sailors watched the upper sails of the British ships 
across the narrow strip of land which formed the 
outer edge of the bay. When he had opened the 
bay, Downie hove to with his four larger vessels, 
and waited until the row-galleys came up. 

1 Downie, it should be explained, was not ready, and weighed 
only at the urgent solicitation of General Sir George Prevost, who 
desired his co-operation. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 2 1 9 



At about half-past eight 1 the British squadron 
stood gallantly in on the starboard tack, in line 
abreast. The Chubb stood to the north, while next 
came the Linnet, both heading for the Eagle, which 
they expected to weather, while the Confiance was to 
be laid athwart the hawse of the Saratoga, and the 
Finch and the row-galleys were to engage the Ticon- 
deroga and the Preble, with the American row- 
galleys behind them. There were a few minutes 
of perfect quiet as the distance between the two 
squadrons lessened, the men waiting under great 
nervous tension for the moment of action. Then 
the Eagle fired her long 18's, but prematurely, for 
the shots fell short. Soon afterwards the Linnet, in 
her turn, fired her long 12's at the Saratoga, but 
these shots also fell short, except one that struck a 
hencoop which happened to be on board Mac- 
donough's vessel. There was a gamecock inside, 
and when the coop was knocked to pieces he 
jumped up, clapped his wings, and crowed lustily. 
To the nervously-expectant sailors it seemed a good 
omen. They laughed and cheered, and, immediately 
afterwards, Macdonough himself fired one of his 
long 24's. His aim was good, and the ball ranged 
the length of the Confiance, killing and wounding 
several men. All the American long-guns opened, 
and those of the British galleys replied. 

1 According to the times in the British accounts, Downie filled 
and made sail at 7.40 a. m. See Pring's letter of September 12th to 
Yeo. — W. L. C. 



220 Naval Operations of the War Between 

The Chubb and the Linnet escaped nearly un- 
scratched, and anchored on the Eagle s beam, for 
both the Saratoga and the Eagle devoted their atten- 
tion chiefly to the Confiance. The latter frigate 
stood steadily in without replying to the American 
fire, but she was terribly cut up, losing both her port 
bow anchors; and she suffered much in her hull. 
She ported her helm, and came to while still about 
four hundred yards from the Saratoga. Downie 
came to anchor in grand style, making everything 
tight, and then delivered a well aimed and terribly 
destructive broadside into the Saratoga. Two or 
three of the British galleys took part in the attack 
on the head of the American line, where there were 
also five or six of the American row-galleys. Mean- 
while the Finch, under her sweeps, led the remaining 
British row-galleys to the attack of the Ticonderoga, 
where the four or five weakest of the American row- 
galleys were also stationed. 

At the foot of the line the British effort was to 
turn the American flank. At first the fighting was 
at long range, but gradually the assailants closed. 
On both sides there was great variety in the indi- 
vidual behaviour of the galleys, some being handled 
with the utmost courage, and others rather timidly, 
as was not unnatural, for the men in them were not 
used to their work, nor to act with one another; 
and the attack of each depended upon who its com- 
mander happened to be. Moreover, as they were 
open boats, it was easy to inflict very heavy 



Great Britain and the United States 221 

slaughter among the closely-crowded crews. The 
British galleys which took part in the attack on the 
Ticonderoga and the Preble were under the command 
of Lieutenant Christopher James Bell, and were 
well handled. Two or three of them hung back, as 
did those at the head of the line, where it was 
impossible to expect them to make head against the 
Saratoga and the Eagle ; but where Bell himself led 
them, they followed him with the utmost determina- 
tion. About an hour after the discharge of the first 
gun, the Finch got close to the Ticonderoga, only to 
be completely crippled by the broadsides of the 
latter. Half her crew were killed or wounded ; and 
she drifted helplessly away, grounding near Crab 
Island, where she surrendered to the patients in the 
hospital. At about the same time the Preble, on the 
American side was forced out of line by the British 
gunboats, and drifted ashore out of the fight. The 
American gunboats in that part of the line also 
gave way. Two or three of the British row-galleys 
had already been so roughly handled by the long 
guns of the Ticonderoga that they made no further 
effort to come within effective range, so that, at the 
foot of the line, the fight became one between the 
Ticonderoga, under Lieutenant-Commander Stephen 
Cassin, on the one side, and the remaining British 
gunboats, under Lieutenant Bell, on the other. 
Bell's attack was most resolute, and the defence 
of the American schooner was equally obstinate. 
Cassin walked the quarterdeck, paying no heed to 



222 Naval Operations of the War Between 

the balls singing round him, while he scanned the 
movements of the galleys, and directed his guns to 
be loaded with canister and bags of bullets when the 
British tried to board. He was well seconded by 
his officers, especially by a young midshipman 
named Hiram Paulding. When Paulding found 
that the matches of his division were defective, he 
fired his guns by flashing pistols at the touch-holes 
during the remainder of the fight. Bell's galleys 
were pushed to within a boat-hook's length of the 
schooner ; but her fire was so heavy that they could 
not get alongside, and one by one they drew off, so 
crippled by the slaughter that they could hardly 
man the oars. 

At the head of the line the advantage had been 
with the British. The Chubb, however, was too 
light for the company she was in, and speedily 
suffered the fate of the Preble and the Finch, being 
driven out of the line. Her cable, bowsprit, and 
main-boom were shot away, and, when she drifted 
inside the American ships, she was taken possession 
of by a midshipman from the Saratoga. The Linnet, 
which was remarkably well handled by her captain, 
Daniel Pring, paid no attention to the American 
gunboats, directing her whole fire against the Baffle. 
The Eagle was a much heavier vessel, but she was 
also partially engaged with the Confiance ; and, 
moreover, the Linnet was fought with the utmost 
courage and skill. After keeping up a heavy fire 
for a long time, the Eagle s springs were shot away, 



Great Britain and the United States 223 

and she hung in the wind, unable to answer the 
Linnet with a single shot. Accordingly, she cut her 
cables, started home her topsails, and ran down 
between, and in shore of, the Saratoga and Ticon- 
deroga, where she again came to anchor and opened 
fire on the Confiance. The Linnet was then able to 
give her undivided attention to the American row- 
galleys. After she had driven them off she sprang 
her broadside so as to rake the Saratoga. 

The Saratoga had already suffered heavily. The 
first broadside of the Confiance s double-shotted long 
24's had crashed into her hull with a shock which 
threw half her people on the deck, knocking down 
many, and either killing or crippling them. Her 
first lieutenant, Peter Gamble, was among the slain, 
being killed just as he knelt down to sight the bow- 
gun. Macdonough himself worked like a tiger in 
pointing and handling his favourite piece. While 
bending over to sight it the spanker-boom above his 
head was cut in two by a round shot. It fell on 
him, and knocked him senseless for two or three 
minutes. Leaping to his feet, he again returned 
to the gun. Immediately afterwards a round shot 
took off the head of the captain of the gun, and 
drove it into Macdonough' s face with such force as 
to knock him to the other side of the deck. 

The broadsides of the Confiance, however, grew 
steadily less effective. Her guns had been levelled 
to point-blank range at first, but the quoins were 
loosened by the successive broadsides, and, as they 



224 Naval Operations of the War Between 

were not properly replaced, her shot kept going 
higher and higher so as to pass over the enemy. 
Very soon after the beginning of the action the 
gallant Downie was slain, a shot from the Saratoga 
throwing one of the long 24's oh its carriage against 
his right groin. His death was instantaneous, though 
the skin was not broken. 

No ships could bear the brunt of such a battle 
without suffering. After a few minutes, the fire 
from both the Confiance and the Saratoga began to 
decrease. One by one the guns were disabled, and 
the lack of complete training among the crews 
showed itself in the way in which each side helped 
to disable its own battery. The American sailors 
overloaded their carronades, cramming their guns 
until the last shot reached the muzzle. The British 
on board the Confiance made an even worse showing. 
They became demoralised by the confusion and 
slaughter, and spoiled one or two of the guns by 
ramming the wadding and round shot into them 
without any powder, or by putting in two cartridges 
of powder and no shot. When, however, the Linnet 
was able to devote herself exclusively to the Sara- 
toga, the latter began to get rather more than she 
wanted. Macdonough had his hands full, with the 
frigate on his beam, and the brig raking him. 
Twice the Saratoga was set on fire by the hot shot 
of the Confiance; one by one her long-guns were 
disabled by the enemy's fire ; and her carronades 
either suffered from the same cause, or else were 



Great Britain and the United States 225 

rendered useless by overcharging. At last only one 
carronade was left in the starboard battery ; and on 
firing it the gun flew off the carriage and fell down 
the main hatch. This left the Saratoga without a 
single gun which she could fire, and, though the 
Confiance had been almost as roughly handled, the 
British ship still had a few port guns that could be 
used. On both sides the unengaged batteries, the 
starboard battery of the Confiance and the port 
battery of the Saratoga, were practically unharmed. 

The British victory would now have been secure 
had not Macdonough provided in advance the means 
for meeting just such an emergency. 

The anchor suspended astern of the Saratoga was 
let go, and the men hauled in on the hawser that 
led to the starboard quarter, bringing the ship's 
stern up over the kedge. The ship then rode by 
the kedge, and by a hawser that had been bent to 
a bight in the stream cable. In that position she 
was exposed to a raking fire from the Linnet, and 
suffered much from the accuracy of Pring's long 
12's. By hauling on the line, however, the ship 
was at length got so far round that the aftermost 
gun of the port broadside bore on the Confiance. 
The men had been sent forward to keep them as 
much out of harm's way as possible. Enough were 
now called back to man the piece, and they at once 
began a brisk and accurate fire. Again the crew 
roused on the line until the next gun bore, and it, 
too, was manned, and opened with effect on the 

15 



226 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Confiance. Then the ship hung, and would go no 
farther round. But Macdonough was not at the 
end of his resources. The hawser leading from the 
port quarter was got forward under the bows, and 
passed aft to the starboard quarter. The Saratoga 
gradually yielded to the strain, and, a minute later, 
her whole port battery opened with fatal effect. 
The Confiance, meanwhile, had also attempted to 
round. The springs of the British ships were on 
the starboard side, and so, of course, could not be 
shot away as the Eagles were ; but as the Confiance 
had nothing but springs to rely on, her efforts did 
little beyond forcing her forward ; and she hung 
with her head to the wind. She could not stand 
the pounding of the fresh battery. Over half her 
crew were killed or wounded ; all but three or four 
of the guns on the engaged side were dismounted ; 
her stout masts looked like bundles of splinters ; 
and her sails were in shreds and tatters. Nothing 
more could be done, and the Confiance struck about 
two hours after she had fired her first broadside. 
Without pausing a minute the Saratoga again 
hauled on her starboard hawser till her broadside 
was sprung to bear on the Linnet, and the ship and 
brig began a brisk single fight ; for the Eagle, in 
her then berth, could not fire at the Linnet, and the 
Ticonderoga was driving off the British galleys. 
The shattered and disabled state of the Linnet" s 
masts, sails, and yards rendered it utterly hopeless 
for Pring to try to escape by cutting his cable ; and 



Great Britain and the United States 227 

most men would have surrendered at once. But 
Pring kept up a most gallant fight with his greatly 
superior foe, hoping that some of the gunboats 
would come and tow him off. Meanwhile he had 
despatched to the Confiance a lieutenant, who re- 
turned with news of Downie's death. The British 
gunboats had been driven half a mile off, and were 
evidently in no state to render aid to any one ; so, 
after having maintained the fight single-handed for 
fifteen minutes, until, from the number of shot 
between wind and water, the lower deck was flooded, 
the plucky little brig hauled down her colours, and 
the fight ended a little over two hours and a half 
after the first gun had been fired. Not one of the 
American vessels had a mast that would bear can- 
vas, and the captured British vessels were in a 
sinking condition. 

The British row-galleys had drifted to leeward, 
and they now pulled slowly off. The American 
row-galleys were in no position to interfere with 
their retreat, which was not molested. 

The battle had been bloody and destructive. The 
Confiance had been struck in the hull one hundred 
and five, and the Saratoga fifty-five times ; about 
two hundred men were killed or wounded on the 
American side, and over three hundred on the 
British. 1 This does not include those who were 

1 The Confiance had 41 killed and about 60 wounded; the Linnet, 
10 killed and 14 wounded ; the Chubb, 6 killed and 16 wounded ; 
and the Finch, 2 wounded. There were further losses in the 
gunboats. — W. L. C. 



228 Naval Operations of the War Between 

merely knocked down, or bruised, or grazed by 
flying splinters ; indeed, an officer of the Confiance 
reported that at the close of the action there were 
not five men in her who were unhurt. Macdonongh 
appreciated the gallantry of his adversaries, and 
at once returned the British officers their swords ; 
and Pring, the senior British officer left, expressed 
in his official letter his acknowledgment of the 
generosity, courtesy, and humanity with which 
Macdonough had treated himself and his men. 
Pring, and Cassin of the Ticondcroga, shared with 
Macdonough the honour of the day. 

This lake fight decided the fate of the invasion of 
Sir George Prevost, 1 who retired at once with his 
army. Macdonough had performed a most notable 
feat, one which, on the whole, surpassed that of any 
other captain of either navy in this war. The con- 
sequences of the victory were very great, for it had a 
decisive effect upon the negotiations for peace which 
were then being carried on between the American 
and the British commissioners at Ghent. The Duke 
of Wellington, who had been pressed to take com- 
mand of the British army in Canada, advised 
against any prolongation of the war, if it could be 
terminated on the basis of each nation being left 

1 Prevost's failure to co-operate with the squadron, as he had 
undertaken to do, was largely responsible for the disaster. Sir 
James Lucas Yeo preferred certain charges against him in conse- 
quence ; but Prevost died before he could be brought before a court- 
martial. See Mems. of C M. on Pring and others, August 28th, 
1815. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the U 

? % es 



in the position which it had i triem \Z-u IS n 
struggle, giving this advice on the ground that ti 
failure of the British to obtain control of the lakes 
rendered it impossible to expect any decisive triumph 
of the British arms. 1 Indeed, in the war of 1812, 
the control of the lakes was the determining factor 
in the situation on the Canadian border, for at that 
time the frontier between the two countries nowhere 
passed through any thickly-settled regions, except 
in the immediate neighbourhood of great bodies of 
water ; and the military operations that were under- 
taken had to be conducted with this condition in 
view. 

1 Wellington's Dispatches, xii. 224; Supplementary Dispatches, 
i. 426, and ix. 438. See Adams, viii. 102-112, for this battle, and 
ix. 36-41, for its effects on the negotiations for peace. 

In his letter of November 9th, written after the receipt of the 
news of the battle of Lake Champlain, Wellington advises the Cabi- 
net that they " have no right, from the state of the war, to demand 
any concession of territory from America," and gives as the main 
reason, " the want of the naval superiority on the lakes." 



>l7''"»'^ 



THE BLOCKADE AND THE CRUISERS 

"TN ESTRUCTION of Barney's gunboats — Capture of Washington 
•*-^ — Gordon at Alexandria — Repulse at Baltimore — Lockyer 
in Lake Borgne — Repulse at Fort Bowyer — The case of the 
Erebus — Increase of American privateering — The Chasseur, of 
Baltimore — British indignation — Capture of the St. Lawrence — 
The General Armstrong — The Prince de Neufchdtel — Capture of 
the Frolic — The Peacock and the Epervier — The Wasp and the 
Reindeer — The Wasp and the Avon — Loss of the Wasp — The 
Endymion and the President — Capture of the Levant and Cyane — 
Escape of the Constitution — The Hornet and the Penguin — Escape 
of the Hornet — The Peacock and the Nautilus — End of the war — 
Novel weapons in the American navy — A drawn quarrel. 

THE inability of America in any way to inter- 
rupt the British blockade of her coast was 
now to bear fruit in the disgrace of the 
loss of the national capital. Of course, so long as the 
British possessed absolute control of the sea, they 
could take the offensive whenever and wherever they 
wished, and could choose their own point of attack, 
while the American government never knew what 
point to defend. From Maryland to Georgia the 
militia were under arms literally by the hundred 
thousand, and they were less efficient than one-tenth 
the number of regulars. While in the field they suf- 
fered greatly from disease, so that there was much 
loss of life, although there was hardly any righting ; 
and on the few occasions when it was possible to 



Naval Operations 231 

gather them soon enough to oppose them to a British 
raiding party, they naturally showed themselves 
utterly incompetent to stand against trained regu- 
lars. The loss of life and the waste of wealth by the 
employment of these militia in the southern states, 
though they were hardly ever used in battle, offset 
many times over the expense that would have been 
incurred by building a fighting fleet sufficient to 
prevent a blockade, and therefore to obviate all 
the damage which it cost during the two years 
when it was in force — damage which the pri- 
vateers only partially avenged, and in no way 
averted. 

Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander F. I. Cochrane had 
succeeded to the command of the British fleet on the 
coast of North America in the summer of 1814. 
Rear-Admiral George Cockburn was in command in 
the Chesapeake, whither Cochrane himself sailed in 
August, together with a fleet of transports contain- 
ing a small British army under Major-General 
Robert Ross. At about the same time Cochrane 
had issued a general order to the British blockading 
squadrons, instructing them to destroy and lay 
waste the towns and districts which they could suc- 
cessfully assail, sparing only the lives of the unarmed 
inhabitants. This was done in alleged retaliation for 
the conduct of a party of American soldiers on the 
Canadian boundary, who had wantonly destroyed 
the little town of Newark ; although the destruction 
of Newark had been promptly avenged by the de- 



232 Naval Operations of the War Between 

struction of Buffalo and one or two other small 
American towns, while the officer who had ordered 
Newark to be destroyed had been court-martialled 
for his conduct. A curious feature of Cochrane' s 
order, which was of course, grossly improper, was 
that it applied only to the Navy ; and Ross showed 
by his actions how strongly he disapproved of it, for 
though the Navy did a great deal of plundering and 
burning, in accordance with the instructions given, 
Ross's troops at first paid scrupulous heed to the 
rights of the citizens, and in no way interfered with 
private property. 1 

The first duty of the fleet was to get rid of Cap- 
tain Joshua Barney's flotilla of gunboats. This 
flotilla had indulged in several indecisive long-range 
skirmishes with various ships of the blockading 
squadron, and it was now forced to put into the 
Patuxent, where it was burned when Ross advanced 
on Washington. Barney's flotilla-men then joined 
the motley forces gathered to defend the capital city, 
and offered a striking contrast in their behaviour on 
the field of battle to the rabble of militia around 
them, who fled while the sailors fought. 2 

About the middle of August Cochrane and Ross 
were ready for action. On the 20th Ross's troops 
were disembarked on the Maryland shore, some fifty 
miles distant from Washington ; Cockburn proceeded 

1 Adams, viii. 126. 

2 ' Biographical Memoir of the late Commodore Joshua Barney,' 
p. 315. 



Great Britain and the United States 233 

up the Patuxent * on the Maryland side. On the 
23rd they definitely made up their minds to attack 
Washington first and Baltimore later. Meanwhile 
a British squadron, composed of the frigates Sea- 
horse, 38, Captain James Alexander Gordon (1), and 
Euryalus, 36, Captain Charles Napier (2), with four 
bombs and rocket ships, moved up the Potomac. In 
addition Captain Sir Peter Parker (2), in the Mcne- 
laus, 38, was sent to create a diversion above Balti- 
more ; but he happened to meet a party of militia, 
who fought well, for when he landed at Bellair to 
attack them, on August 30th, he was himself killed 
and his party beaten back, with a loss of forty-one 
men. 2 

1 Rear-Admiral Cockburn had under his orders the armed boats 
and tenders of the fleet, having on board Royal Marines under Capt. 
John Robyns, and Royal Marine Artillery under Captain James H. 
Harrison. The boats were under the general superintendence of 
Captain John Wainwright (2), of the Tonnant, and were in three 
divisions, commanded as follows : I. Commanders Thomas Ball 
Sulivan aud William Stanhope Badcock ; II. Commanders Rowland 
Money and Kenelm Somerville ; III. Commander Robert Ramsay. 
Following the boats, so far as the depth of water permitted, were 
the Severn, 40, Captain Joseph Nourse, Hebrus, 42, Captain Ed- 
mund Palmer, and Manly, 12, Commander Vincent Newton ; but 
the frigates could not get higher than Benedict, whence their Cap- 
tains, with their boats, proceeded to join Cockburn. — W. L. C. 

2 Sir Peter Parker (2), Bart., was eldest son of Vice-Admiral 
Christopher Parker (2), and was born in 1786. He was a Captain 
of October 22nd, 1805, and, in 1811, had succeeded to the Baronetcy 
of his grandfather, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Peter Parker (1). In 
the affair at Bellair, near Baltimore, 11 British were killed, includ- 
ing, besides Parker, Midshipman John T. Sandes; and 27 were 
wounded, including Lieutenants Benjamin George Benyon and 
George Poe, R.M. — W. L. C. 



234 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Ross and Cockburn moved against Washington, 
and, on August 24th, encountered a huddle of seven 
thousand American militia at Bladensburg. It could 
not be called an army. A few companies were in 
uniform. The rest were clad as they would have 
been clad in the fields, except that they had muskets. 
They were under two or three worthless generals, 
one named Winder being in supreme command ; and 
various members of the cabinet, notably Monroe, 
accompanied President Madison in riding or driving 
aimlessly about among the troops. Not a third of 
Ross's little army was engaged, 1 for the militia fled 
too quickly to allow the main body of the assailants 
to get into action. As they were running off the 
field, however, Barney appeared, with his sailors 
from the flotilla, also on the run, but in the opposite 
direction. He had with him about four hundred 
and fifty seamen and marines, the latter being under 
their own officer, Captain Miller; and he also had a 
battery of five guns. It was a sufficiently trying 
situation, for Barney's force was hopelessly outnum- 
bered by the victorious troops whose attack he was 
advancing to meet through a throng of fugitive 
militia ; but the sailors and marines were of excel- 
lent stuff, and were as little daunted by the flight of 

1 In the action at Bladensburg the British army lost 64 killed 
and 185 wounded. The Navy lost only 1 killed and 6 wounded. 
Among the naval officers present were Rear- Admiral George Cock- 
burn, Captain Edmund Palmer, Lieutenant James Scott (2), of the 
Albion, Midshipman Arthur Wakefield, Lieutenant John Lawrence, 
R.M.A., and Lieutenant Athelstau Stephens, R.M. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 235 

their friends as by the advance of their foes. Again 
and again the sailors repulsed the troops who at- 
tacked them in front. They were then outflanked, 
and retired, after half an hour's fighting, a hundred 
of their men having been killed or wounded. Both 
Barney and Miller were wounded and captured, to- 
gether with the guns. One of the British officers, 
writing afterwards of the battle, spoke with the 
utmost admiration of Barney's men. " Not only 
did they serve their guns with a quickness and pre- 
cision that astonished their assailants, but they stood 
till some of them were actually bayoneted with fuses 
in their hands ; nor was it till their leader was 
wounded and taken, and they saw themselves de- 
serted on all sides by the soldiers, that they left the 
field." 1 The victorious British showed every atten- 
tion to Barney and his men, treating them, as 
Barney said, "as if they were brothers." 2 

As Ross and Cockburn led their troops into 
Washington they were fired on from a house, Ross's 
horse being killed. They then proceeded to burn the 
Capitol and the White House, together with various 
other public buildings. 3 Next day the work of de- 
struction was completed, 4 a few private buildings 

1 Gleig's ' Subaltern,' p. 68. 

2 Barney's report, Aug. 29th, 1814. 

8 Letters of Cockburn, Aug. 27th, and Ross, Aug. 30th; Inger- 
soll, ii. 188; James's 'Military Occurrences,' ii. 495; Am. State 
Papers, Military Affairs, i. 550 ; Niles, September 1814. 

4 The Americans themselves destroyed the Argus, 22, and a frig- 
ate which was nearly ready for launching, in order to save them 
from capture. — W. L. C. 



236 Naval Operations of the War Between 

sharing the same fate, while Cockburn took particu- 
lar pleasure in destroying one of the newspaper offices, 
as he seemed much to resent the criticism of him- 
self in the American press. Having completed their 
work, Ross and Cockburn marched back to the 
coast, leaving behind them most of their wounded 
to be cared for by the Americans. 

Whatever discredit attached to the burning and 
plundering of Washington attached to both Ross and 
Cockburn, though Ross evidently disliked the work 
as much as Cockburn enjoyed it. It was only an 
incident in the general destruction undertaken by 
Cochrane' s orders. Washington was burned just as, 
along the shores of the Chesapeake, hamlets and 
private houses were burned. The pretext was that 
this was done to avenge the destruction of the public 
buildings at York, and of the town of Newark, in 
the American descents upon Canada. The public 
buildings at York, however, were but partially 
destroyed by stragglers, whose work was at once 
checked by the American officers in command. The 
burning of Newark had been promptly repudiated by 
the American government, and, moreover, had 
already been amply avenged. The destruction of 
the public buildings at Washington was indefensible ; 
and it was also very unwise so deeply to touch the 
national pride. The affair had a perceptible effect 
in making the country more determined to carry on 
the war. It is, however, nonsense to denounce the 
act in the language that has so often been applied 



Great Britain and the United States 237 

to it. Cockburn and Ross undoubtedly treated the 
capital of the American nation in a way "which jus- 
tified an eager desire for revenge ; but Americans 
should keep the full weight of their indignation for 
the government whose supineness and shortsighted- 
ness rendered such an outrage possible. Jomini has 
left on record the contemptuous surprise felt by all 
European military men when a state, with a popu- 
lation of eight million souls, allowed a handful of 
British soldiers to penetrate unchecked to its capital, 
and there destroy the public buildings. The first 
duty of a nation is self-defence ; and nothing ex- 
cuses such lack of warlike readiness as the Ameri- 
cans had shown. The incidents which accompanied 
the capture of Washington were discreditable to the 
British, but the capture itself was far more discred- 
itable to the Americans. 

Meanwhile Captain Gordon's little squadron ! 
worked its way up the Potomac, and, on August 
28th, took Alexandria, where it remained for four 
days, loading the vessels with whatever the ware- 
houses contained. 2 Then the squadron began its 
descent of the river, which was shoal, and very 

1 Seahorse, 38, Captain James Alexander Gordon; Euryalus, 36, 
Captain Charles Napier (2) ; Devastation, bomb, Commander Thomas 
Alexander (2) : sEtna, bomb, Commander Richard Kenah ; Meteor, 
bomb, Commander Samuel Roberts ; Erebus, rocket-vessel, Com- 
mander David Ewen Bartholomew ; Fairy, 18, Commander Henry 
Loraine Baker (joined with orders, after the fall of Alexandria) ; 
and Anna Maria, dispatch-boat. — W. L. C. 

2 Letter of Captain Gordon, Sept. 9th, 1814. 



238 Naval Operations of the War Between 

difficult to navigate. Captain John Rodgers, with 
some of the crews of two new 44' s which were build- 
ing, tried to bar his way, but lacked sufficient means. 
Twice Rodgers attempted to destroy one of the 
British vessels with fire-ships, but failed, and once, 
in his turn, he repelled an attack by the British 
boats. The squadron also passed, without much 
damage, a battery of light field-pieces. On Septem- 
ber 6th Gordon silenced and passed the last of the 
batteries, having taken six days to go down from 
Alexandria. He had lost forty-two men 1 all told, 
and had thus concluded successfully, at a very 
trivial cost, a most venturesome expedition, which 
reflected great honour on the crews engaged in it. 

The very rough handling received by Sir Peter 
Parker (2) put a check to the marauding of the 
British frigates and sloops. As soon as Gordon 
rejoined him Cochrane sailed from the mouth of the 
Potomac to the mouth of the Patapsco River, on 
which Baltimore stands. Formidable earthworks 
had been thrown up about Baltimore, however; 
and to guard it against attack by sea there were 
good forts, which were well manned by men who 
had at last begun to learn something. Ross ad- 
vanced against the city by land, and was killed in 
a sharp encounter with a body of militia. The 

1 Viz., 7 killed, including Lieutenant Charles Dickinson (Fairy), 
and 35 wounded, including Captain Charles Napier (2), Commander 
David Ewen Bartholomew, Lieutenant Reuben Paine, and Master's 
Mate Andrew Reid. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 239 



troops found the earthworks too strong to assault ; 
the ships bombarded the forts without any effect ; 
and then both the soldiers and the sailors ! retired. 2 
Not long afterwards Cochrane left for Halifax, 3 and 
the British troops for Jamaica, so that operations in 
the Chesapeake ceased. 

During this time the British Navy had protected 
an expedition which overran, and held until the 
close of the war, a part of the Maine sea-coast, and 
in September, 1814, a large British force, under 
Rear- Admiral Edward Griffith, destroyed the Ameri- 
can corvette Adams, 28, which had run up the 
Penobscot for refuge. 

After leaving Baltimore the British prepared 
for a descent on New Orleans, and gathered a 
large fleet of line-of-battle ships, frigates, and small 
vessels, under Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander F. I. 
Cochrane, convoying a still larger number of store- 

1 In the attack on Baltimore, the 600 seamen who were landed 
were under Captain Edward Crofton, and Commanders Thomas 
Ball Sulivan, Rowland Money, and Robert Ramsay, and the Royal 
Marines under Captain John Robyns. In the affair of September 
12th, -when Major-General Ross fell, the Navy lost 7 killed and 48 
wounded, among the latter being Captain John Robyns, R.M., 
Lieutenant Sampson Marshall, and Midshipman Charles Ogle (2). 
During a subsequent expedition up the Coan River, on October 3rd, 
Commander Richard Kenah, of the jEtna, was killed. — W. L. C. 

2 Cochrane's report, Sept. 17th, 1814. 

8 Cochrane sailed for Halifax on September 19th to make prepa- 
rations for the New Orleans expedition. On the same day Rear- 
Admiral Cockburn departed for Bermuda; and on October 14th, 
Rear- Admiral Pulteney Malcolm quitted the Chesapeake for Negril 
Bay, Jamaica. — W. L. C. 



240 Naval Operations of the War Between 

ships and transports, containing the troops under 
Major-General Sir Edward Pakenham. The expe- 
dition made its appearance at the mouth of the 
Mississippi on December 8th. The first duty which 
fell to the boats of the squadron was to destroy five 
American gunboats which lay in the shallow bayou 
known as Lake Borgne. Accordingly, forty-two 
launches, each armed with a carronade in the bow, 
and carrying nine hundred and eighty seamen and 
Royal Marines all told, were sent off, under Com- 
mander Nicholas Lockyer, 1 to effect their destruc- 
tion. The gunboats carried an aggregate of one 
hundred and eighty-two men, under the command 
of Lieutenant Thomas Ap Catesby Jones, U.S.N. 
Each was armed with one heavy long-gun, and 
several light pieces. 2 The attack was made on the 
morning of December 14th, 1814. 3 Jones had 
moored his five gun-vessels in a head and stern line 

1 Commander Nicholas Lockyer, of the Sophie, 18, was assisted 
by Commanders Henry Montresor, of the Manly, and Samuel 
Roberts, of the Meteor, bomb, and each commanded a division of 
boats. The boats engaged were those of the Tonnant, Norge, Bed- 
ford, Ramillies. Royal Oak, Armide, Seahorse, Cydnus, Trave, Sophie, 
Meteor, Belle Poule, Gorgon, Alceste, and Diomede. A medal for the 
action was granted in 1847. — W. L. C. 

2 Lieutenant Jones's account gives his full force as 5 gunboats, 
mounting in all three long 32's, two long 24's, twenty-two long 6's, 
four 12-pr. carronades, two 5-in. howitzers, and twelve swivels, and 
having 182 men on board. He had also with him the schooner Sea- 
horse, which he detached to Bay St. Louis before the attack, and the 
little sloop Alligator. — W. L. C. 

» Letters of Captain Lockyer, Dec. 18th, 1814, and of Lieutenant 
Jones, March 12, 1815. 



Great Britain and the United States 241 

in the channel off Malheureux Island passage, with 
their boarding nettings triced up, and everything in 
readiness; but the force of the current drifted his 
own boat and another out of line, a hundred yards 
down. Jones had to deal with a force five times 
the size of his own, and to escape he had only to 
run his boats on shore ; but he prepared very coolly 
for battle. 

Commander Lockyer acted as coolly as his an- 
tagonist. When he had reached a point just out of 
gunshot, he brought the boats to a grapnel, to let 
the sailors eat breakfast and get a little rest, for 
they had been rowing most of the time for a day 
and a night, and a cutting out expedition meant 
murderous work. When the men were refreshed 
he formed the boats in open order, and they pulled 
gallantly on against the strong current. At ten 
minutes past eleven the Americans opened fire, and, 
for a quarter of an hour, had the firing all to them- 
selves. Then the carronades and light guns on 
both sides were brought into play. Lockyer led 
the advance in a barge of the Seahorse. The near- 
est gunboat was that of the American commander. 
Accordingly, it was these two who first came to 
close quarters, Lockyer laying his barge alongside 
Lieutenant Jones's boat. An obstinate struggle 
ensued, but the resistance of the Americans was 
very fierce, and the barge was repulsed, most of 
her crew being killed or crippled, while her gal- 
lant captain was severely, and the equally gallant 

16 



242 Naval Operations of the War Between 

Lieutenant George Pratt mortally, wounded. An- 
other boat, under the command of Lieutenant James 
Barnwell Tatnall, grappled the gunboat and was 
promptly sunk. But the other boats pulled steadily 
up, and, one after another, were laid on board the 
doomed vessel. The boarding-nets were slashed 
through and cut away ; with furious fighting the 
deck was gained; the American commander and 
many of his crew were killed or wounded, and the 
gunboat was carried. Her guns were turned on 
the second boat, which was soon taken, and then 
the British dashed at the third, which was carried 
with a rush after a gallant defence, her commander, 
Lieutenant Robert Spedden, being badly wounded. 
The next gunboat fell an easy prey, her long-gun 
having been dismounted by the recoil, and the 
fifth then hauled down her flag. Forty-one of the 
Americans, and ninety-four of the British, 1 were 
killed or wounded. 

A brigade of British sailors took part in the 
battles before New Orleans, and shared the disasters 
that there befell the British army ; but their deeds 
belong to military rather than to naval history. 

1 The British lost 17 killed and 77 wounded, out of a total of 
about 980 engaged. Among the killed were Midshipmen Thomas 
W. Moore, John Mills, and Henry Symons ; among the wounded 
were Commander Nicholas Lockyer, Lieutenants William Gilbert 
Roberts, John Franklin, Henry Gladwell Etough, and George Pratt 
(mortally), and Lieutenant James Uniacke, R.M. For the gallantry 
displayed, Commander Lockyer was posted on March 29th, 1815, 
and Commanders Henry Montresor and Samuel Roberts were simi- 
larly advanced on June 13th following. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 243 

The British navy did not confine itself to attacks 
in Chesapeake Bay and at the mouth of the Missis- 
sippi. On September 15th, 1814, the Hermes, 20, 
Captain the Hon. Henry "William Percy, Carron, 20, 
Captain the Hon. Robert Churchill Spencer, and 
18-gun brig-sloops Sophie, Commander Nicholas 
Lockyer, and Childers, Commander John Brand 
Umfreville, with a land force of about two hundred 
men, made an attack on Fort Bowyer, at Mobile 
Point. 1 The attack failed completely. The car- 
ronades of the ships were unfit for such a contest, 
and no damage was done to the fort, while the 
Hermes grounded and was burnt, and the assailants 
were repulsed, losing about eighty men all told. 

Early in 1815 Rear- Admiral George Cockburn 
began to harry the coast of Georgia. He gathered 
a great deal of plunder, and did much destruction 
in an expedition up the St. Mary's River. As usual, 
the militia were helpless to impede his movements 
or relieve the threatened points. One or two of his 
boat attacks failed ; and the small force of Ameri- 
can seamen which manned the little flotilla of gun- 
boats in the shallow waters of the South Atlantic 
twice themselves made cutting-out expeditions, in 
which they captured two boats of one of his frigates, 
the Hebrus, and the tender of another, the Severn? 
These little checks, however, were merely sufficient 
to irritate the British ; and Savannah was in an 

1 James, vi. 356 (ed. 1837). 

2 Navy Dept. MSS., Captains' Letters, vol. 42, Nos. 100 and 130. 



244 Naval Operations of the War Between 

agony of well-grounded fear lest she should suffer 
the fate of Washington, when peace came, and 
Cockburn reluctantly withdrew. A disagreeable 
incident occurred after the news of peace had come. 
The British 20-gun sloop Erebus, Commander David 
Ewen Bartholomew, came across an American gun- 
boat, under the command of Mr. Hurlburt, and 
ordered her to lie to. The gunboat refused, where- 
upon the sloop gave her a broadside, and she fired 
her only gun, and struck. 1 Afterwards Bartholomew 
apologised, and let the gunboat proceed. His gun- 
nery had been bad, and none of the gunboat's crew 
were hurt. A few months later, on June 30th, 
1815, a parallel incident, with the parties reversed, 
occurred in the China Seas, J where the American 
sloop Peacock, 22, met the little East India Com- 
pany's brig Nautilus, 14. 2 The meeting will be 
described later. 

Thus, throughout the last year of the war, the 
American coast had been blockaded, and harassed, 
and insulted by harrying parties, as well as by 
descents in force, from the St. John's to the Missis- 
sippi. Virginia, Maryland, Maine, and Georgia had 
been equally powerless to repel or avenge the 
attacks from which they had suffered. Alexandria 
had been plundered and Hampton burned, the 

1 Navy Dept. MSS., Captains' Letters, vol. 43, No. 125. Niles's 
Register, viii. 104, 118. 

2 The Nautilus, however, fared worse than Mr. Hurlburt's gun- 
boat, for she lost 6 killed, and 9, including her commander, Lieu- 
tenant Charles Boyce, wounded. — W. L. C. 



i 



Great Britain and the United States 245 

Georgia coast ravaged and part of Maine perma- 
nently held ; and only at the month of the Missis- 
sippi — and there, thanks solely to the genius of 
Andrew Jackson — had the invaders met a bloody 
and crushing defeat. Moreover, the blockade was 
so vigorous that the shipping rotted at the wharves 
of the seaports, and grass grew in the business 
quarters of the trading towns. Of course very 
swift and very lucky merchant vessels now and 
then got in or out, but they had to charge for 
their wares prices that would repay the great risk 
of capture ; and, for an impoverished people, those 
prices were nearly prohibitory. The general suffer- 
ing was very great, and the people, instead of realis- 
ing that their own shortcomings were at fault, 
stormed at the administration — with very good 
reason, it must be confessed. The war had really 
done a great service ; but this the people, naturally 
enough, failed to recognise at the moment ; and the 
discomfort and humiliation to which they were sub- 
jected made them long for peace. For eight months 
the overthrow of Napoleon had left Great Britain 
free to put her whole strength against the United 
States. The result had by no means come up to her 
expectations, for her aggressive movements, at Platts- 
burg Bay and at New Orleans, had met with defeat. 
But the ceaseless pressure of the blockade told heav- 
ily in her favour. Every American citizen felt in his 
pocket and on his table the results of the presence 
of the British warships off the harbour mouths. 



246 Naval Operations of the War Between 

No stringency of the blockade, however, could 
keep the American cruisers in port. The sloops of 
war and the big privateers were commanded and 
manned by men whose trade it was to run risks and 
overcome dangers. Daringly and skilfully handled, 
they continually ran in and out of the ports, ever 
incurring the risk of capture, but ever doing damage 
for which their capture could not atone. 

Thanks to their numbers, and to the fact that 
they only fought when they had to, the privateers 
did more damage than the sloops to British com- 
merce. Like the privateers, the sloops cruised, by 
choice, right in the home waters of Britain, but 
they never went after merchantmen when there was 
a chance of tackling men-of-war ; and the chief 
harrying of the British commerce was left to the 
men who did it for personal reasons, actuated half 
by love of gain and half by love of adventure. 

The deeds of the commerce-destroyers in this war 
are very noteworthy. In spite of the fact that the 
stringency of the blockade of the American coast 
increased steadily, and of the further fact that, 
during the latter part of the war, the British were 
able to employ their whole Navy against the Ameri- 
cans, the ravages of the American cruisers grew 
more and more formidable month by month until 
the peace. The privateers were handled with a 
daring and success previously unknown. Always 
before this, in any contest with a European power, 
the British Navy had in the end been able to get 



Great Britain and the United States 247 

the hostile privateers completely under, and to pre- 
vent any large portion of British trade from being 
driven into neutral bottoms. France possessed 
treble the population of the United States, and 
she had a great fighting fleet ; while her harbours 
were so near the English coast as to offer an excel- 
lent base of operations against British commerce. 
But, when the American war broke out, Britain had 
very nearly driven the French privateers from the 
ocean, and had almost entirely expelled them from 
British home waters. The result was that, in 1812, 
British commerce was safer at sea than it had been 
during the early period of the French war. But 
nothing of the kind happened in the American war. 
The boldness of the privateers, and the severity of 
their ravages, increased every year. In 1814 the 
privateers that put to sea were large, well-built, 
formidably armed, and heavily-manned vessels, of 
about the size of the smaller sloops of war, and 
faster than any other craft afloat. England was 
near to continental Europe, and America was 
divided from her by the broad Atlantic ; yet no 
European nation ever sent her privateers so boldly 
into British home waters as did America. 

Wherever on the ocean the British merchantmen 
sailed, thither the American privateers followed. 
Their keels furrowed the waters of the Indian 
Ocean and the China Seas ; and they made prizes 
of vessels that sailed from Bombay, Madras, and 
Hong Kong. They swarmed in the West Indies, 



248 Naval Operations of the War Between 

where they landed and burnt small towns, leaving 
behind them proclamations that thus they had 
avenged the burning of Washington. They haunted 
the coasts of the British colonies in Africa ; they 
lay off the harbour of Halifax, and plundered the 
outgoing and incoming vessels, laughing at the 
ships of the line and frigates that strove to drive 
them off. Above all they grew ever fonder of 
sailing to and fro in the narrow seas over which 
England had for centuries claimed an unquestioned 
sovereignty. They cruised in the British Channel, 
where they captured, not only merchantmen, but 
also small regularly armed vessels. The Irish Sea 
and the Irish Channel were among their favourite 
cruising grounds ; they circled Scotland and Ireland ; 
one of them ransomed a Scottish town. The Chas- 
seur of Baltimore, commanded by Thomas Boyle 
cruised for three months off the coast of England, 
taking prize after prize, and in derision sent in, to 
be posted at Lloyd's, a proclamation of blockade of 
the sea-coast of the United Kingdom. 1 In Septem- 
ber 1814 the merchants of Glasgow, Liverpool, and 
Bristol held meetings, and complained bitterly to 
the British Government of the damages inflicted 
upon them. The Liverpool meeting recited that 
some ports, particularly Milford, were under actual 
blockade. The merchants, manufacturers, ship- 
owners, and underwriters of Glasgow protested that 
the audacity of the American privateers had become 

1 Coggeshall's book is filled with incidents of this kind. 






Great Britain and the United States 249 



intolerable ; that they harassed the British coasts ; 
and that the success with which their enterprise 
had been attended was not only injurious to British 
commerce, but also humbling to British pride ; and 
they added a significant comment upon the damage 
which had been done by " a Power whose maritime 
strength had hitherto been impolitically held in con- 
tempt." The rates of insurance rose to an unpre- 
cedented height. For the first time in history a 
rate of 13 per cent, was paid on risks to cross the 
Irish Channel. The Secretary of the Admiralty, 
Mr. Croker, was forced to admit the havoc wrought 
even in the Irish and Bristol Channels, and could 
only respond that, if the merchantmen would never 
sail except under the convoy of a sufficient number 
of men-of-war, they would be safe. Such a state- 
ment was equivalent to admission that no un- 
guarded ship could safely go from one British port 
to another ; and it sufficed to explain why the rate 
of insurance on vessels had gradually risen to double 
the rate which had prevailed during the great war 
with France. 1 On February 11th, 1815, the Times 
complained in these bitter words of the ravages of 
the American sloops of war and privateers : " They 
daily enter in among our convoys, seize prizes in 
sight of those that should afford protection, and if 
pursued ' put on their sea-wings ' and laugh at the 
,clumsy English pursuers. To what is this owing ? 
Cannot we build ships? ... It must indeed be 



1 Adams, viii. 200. 



250 Naval Operations of the War Between 



encouraging to Mr. Madison to read the logs of 
his cruisers. If they fight, they are sure to conquer ; 
if they fly, they are sure to escape." 

The privateers were not fitted to fight regular 
war-vessels. As a rule they rarely made the effort. 
When they did they sometimes betrayed the faults 
common to all irregular fighting men. Many in- 
stances could be cited where they ran away from, 
submitted tamely to, or made but a weak defence 
against, equal or even inferior forces. But such 
was by no means always the case. Exceptionally 
good commanders were able to get their crews into 
a condition when they were formidable foes to any 
man-of-war of their weight in the world ; for, 
though naturally the discipline of a privateer was 
generally slack, yet the men who shipped on board 
her were sure to be skilful seamen, and trained to 
the use of arms, so that, with a little drilling, they 
made good fighting stuff. The larger privateers 
several times captured little British national vessels, 
cutters and the like. On February 26th, 1815, 
the famous Baltimore schooner Chasseur, of four- 
teen guns and seventy men, under Thomas Boyle, 
captured in fair fight the British war-schooner 
St. Lawrence, Lieutenant Henry Cranmer Gordon, 1 

1 The St. Lawrence mounted twelve 12- pr. carronades and one 
long 9, and had, according to James (vi. 370, ed. 1837), 51 men and 
boys, besides passengers, on board. She lost 6 killed and 18 
-wounded. The Chasseur mounted eight 18-pr. carronades and six 
long 9's. James, without specifying his authority, says that she 
lost 5 killed and 8 wounded, out of a complement of 115. O'Byrne 



Great Britain and the United States 251 

of almost exactly the same force, after an obstinate 
action. 1 

Some of the bloodiest engagements of the war were 
between British cutting-out parties and privateers. 
The two most notable cases were those in which the 
two famous New York privateers, the Prince de 
Neufchdtel and the General Armstrong were the 
chief figures. Both were large swift vessels. The 
latter was a brig and the former a brigantine, and 
both had committed exceptionally severe ravages on 
British commerce, having been unusually lucky in 
the prizes they had made. As with all of these pri- 
vateers, it is difficult to get at full particulars of 
them, and in some accounts, both are called schooners. 
The General Armstrong was armed with one heavy 
long-gun and eight long 9's. The Prince de Neuf- 
chdtel carried 17 guns, 9's and 12's, being the larger 
vessel of the two. 

On the 26th of September, 1814, the General 
Armstrong was lying at anchor in the road of Fayal. 
Her master was Samuel Chester Reid, 2 and she had 
a crew of ninety men on board. A British squadron 

(408), in his notice of Lieutenant H. C. Gordon, entirely ignores the 
affair, and says that Gordon, after receiving his first commission, on 
February 4th, 1815, never served again. I cannot find any official 
report of the action. — W. L. C. 

1 Letter of Boyle, March 2nd, 1815. 

2 His father, while serving in the British Navy, had been made 
prisoner by the Americans, whose cause he had subsequently joined. 
He had in the meantime married a colonial lady, Rebecca Chester. 
The son, born in 1783, survived until 1861. He was originally in 
the U.S. Navy. — W. L. C. 



252 Naval Operations of the War Between 



composed of the Plantagenet, 74, Captain Robert 
Lloyd (2) ; Rota, 38, Captain Philip Somerville (1) ; 
and Carnation, 18, Commander George Bentham, 
hove in sight towards sundown. Experience had 
taught the Americans not to trust to the neutrality 
of a weak Power for protection ; and Reid warped 
his brig near shore, and made ready to repel any 
attempt to cut her out. Soon after dark, Captain 
Lloyd sent in four boats. He asserted that they 
were only sent to find out what the strange brig 
was; but of course no such excuse was tenable. 
Four boats, filled with armed men, would not ap- 
proach a strange vessel after nightfall merely to 
reconnoitre her. At any rate, after repeatedly warn- 
ing them off, Reid fired in to them, and they withdrew. 
He then anchored, with springs on his cables, nearer 
shore, and made every preparation for the desperate 
struggle which he knew awaited him. Lloyd did 
not keep him long in suspense. Angered at the 
check he had received, he ordered seven boats of the 
squadron manned by about a hundred and eighty 
picked men, to attack the privateer. He intended 
the Carnation to accompany them, to take part in 
the attack ; but the winds proved too light and 
baffling, and the boats made the attempt alone. 
Under the command of Lieutenant William Matter- 
face, first of the Rota, they pulled in under cover of 
a small reef of rocks, where they lay for some time ; 
and, at about midnight, they advanced to the attack. 
The Americans were on the alert, and, as soon as 



Great Britain and the United States 253 

they saw the boats rowing in through the night, they 
opened with the pivot-gun, and immediately after- 
wards with their long 9's. The British replied with 
their boat carronades, and, pulling spiritedly on 
amidst a terrific fire from both sides, laid the 
schooner aboard on her bow and starboard quarter. 
A murderous struggle followed. The men-of-war's 
men slashed at the nettings and tried to clamber up 
on the decks, while the privateersmen shot down the 
assailants, hacked at them with cutlass and toma- 
hawk, and thrust them through with their long 
pikes. The boats on the quarter were driven off ; 
but on the forecastle the British cut away the net- 
tings, and gained the deck. All three of the Amer- 
ican mates were killed or disabled, and their men 
were beaten back ; but Reid went forward on the 
run, with the men of the after division, and tum- 
bled the boarders back into their boats. This put 
an end to the assault. Two boats were sunk, most 
of the wounded being saved as the shore was so near ; 
two others were captured ; and the others, crippled 
from their losses, and loaded with dead and disabled 
men, crawled back towards the squadron. The loss 
of the Americans was slight. Two were killed and 
seven wounded. The fearful slaughter in the Brit- 
ish boats proved that they had done all that the 
most determined courage could do. Two-thirds of 
the assailants were killed or wounded. 1 

1 The number killed was 34, including Lieutenants William 
Matterface and Charles R. Norman. The number wounded was 



254 Naval Operations of the War Between 

The brig's long 24 had been knocked off its car- 
riage by a carronade shot, but it was replaced and 
the deck again cleared for action. Next day the 
Carnation came in to destroy the privateer, but was 
driven off by the judicious use of the long-gun. 
However, as soon as the wind became favourable, 
the Carnation again advanced. Further resistance 
being hopeless, the Genwal Armstrong was scuttled 
and burned, and the Americans retreated to the 

land. 1 

The Prince de Neufchatel was attacked on October 
11th, 1814. She had made a very successful cruise, 
and had on board goods to the amount of 300,000 
dollars, but had manned and sent in so many prizes 
that only forty of her crew were left, while thirty- 
seven prisoners were confined in the hold. At mid- 
day on the 11th, while off Nantucket, the British 
frigate Endymion, 40, Captain Henry Hope, dis- 
covered her and made sail in chase. Soon after 
nightfall it fell calm, and the frigate despatched 
her boats, with one hundred and eleven men, under 
the command of the first lieutenant, Abel Hawkins, 
to carry the brigantine by boarding. The latter 
triced up the boarding nettings, loaded her guns 
with grape and bullets, and made everything ready 

86, including Lieutenant Richard Rawle, Lieutenant Thomas Park, 
R.M., Purser William Benge Basden, and two midshipmen.— 
W. L. C. 

1 Letter of Captain S. C. Reid, Oct. 7th, 1814, and of Consul 
John B. Dabney, Oct. 5th, 1S14. James, vi. 349 (ed. 1837). Let- 
ter of Captain Lloyd ; Adams, viii. 202. 



Great Britain and the United States 255 



for the encounter. The rapid tide held back the 
boats as they drew near, but they laid the brigantine 
aboard, and a most desperate engagement followed. 
Some of the British actually cut through the net- 
tings and reached the deck, but they were killed by 
the privateersmen as fast as they mounted. Once 
the boats were repulsed ; again they came on, but 
again they were beaten back ; the launch was cap- 
tured, and the others pulled back to the frigate. 
The slaughter had been very heavy, considering the 
number of combatants. The victorious privateer 
had lost seventeen killed, and fifteen badly, and 
nine slightly, wounded, leaving but nine untouched. 
Of the British, about half were killed or wounded, 
including among the former Lieutenant Hawkins 
himself, and, in addition, the launch was taken with 
the twenty-eight men in her. 1 The master of the 
Prince de Neafchatel was John Ordronaux, a New 
Yorker. His name caused the Captain of the 
Endymion to put him down as a Frenchman. 

The commerce-destroying exploits of the Ameri- 
can cruisers had a very distinct effect in furthering 
the readiness of the British to come to terms. They 
helped to make England willing to accept a peace 
by which neither side lost or gained anything. The 
great service rendered by the American commerce- 
destroyers in the war of 1812 must not be blinked ; 
but on the other hand, the lesson it teaches must 

1 Coggeshall's ' History of American Privateers,' 241; James, vi. 
362 (ed. 1837j . 



256 Naval Operations of the War Between 

not be misread. The swift cruisers cut up the 
British trade terribly, and rendered it unsafe even 
for the British coasters to go from one port to an- 
other ; but it cannot be too often insisted that the 
blockading squadrons of Great Britain almost de- 
stroyed both the foreign and the coast commerce 
of the United States. The commerce-destroyers of 
America did their part toward making the war of 
1812 a draw; but the great fighting fleets of Eng- 
land came near making the war a disastrous defeat 
for the Americans. The people of the British sea- 
ports, especially the merchants and ship-owners, 
were sorely distressed by the war ; but in America 
whole regions were brought by the blockade into a 
condition of such discontent with their government 
that they openly talked treason. Moreover, the 
privateers, in spite of their ravages, produced no 
such effect on the contest as the regular vessels of 
the American navy. The victories of the American 
warships kept up the heart of the United States as 
no privateer cruiser, however successful, could keep 
it up ; and Macdonough's triumph on Lake Cham- 
plain had more effect on the negotiations for peace 
than the burning and plundering in the Irish 
Channel. 

The American sloops of war were almost or quite 
as swift as the privateers, and were formidable fight- 
ers to boot. The smaller man-of-war brigs (with 
the exception of the Enterprise) were picked up at 
different times by British cruisers, being able neither 



Great Britain and the United States 257 



to run nor to fight. Of the large sloops there were 
by the spring of 1814 four all told, including the 
Hornet, 20, and the newly built Wasp, Peacock, and 
Frolic, 22. These vessels were as successful in 
breaking the blockade as the privateers, and more 
successful in evading capture; and each of them 
was a menace, not merely to the British merchant- 
men, but to all British armed vessels less in force 
than a heavy corvette or a small frigate. Like the 
privateers, they cruised by preference on the seas 
where the British merchantmen and British armed 
vessels were most numerous, the immediate neigh- 
bourhood of the British Islands being a favourite 
haunt. 

The British Admiralty had at least partially 
solved the problem of meeting the American frig- 
ates, by providing that the British frigates, which 
were usually lighter ships, should cruise in couples 
or small squadrons, and should avoid encounters 
with American frigates of superior force ; but it 
made no such provision in the case of the sloops, 
nor was there any evidence of endeavour to make 
better the gunnery of the sloops. In consequence, 
the various sloop actions with which the war closed 
ended as favourably for the Americans as had the 
early fights in 1812. The ordinary British sloop 
was the 18-gun brig. She was not so good a ves- 
sel as the American ship-sloop carrying twenty or 
twenty-two guns. There were corresponding ship- 
sloops in the British Navy ; but no effort was made 



17 



258 Naval Operations of the War Between 



to substitute them for the brig-sloops, nor were they 
so employed as to bring them into contact with the 
Wasp, the Hornet, and their fellows. Moreover, the 
brig-sloops proved on the whole to be far more in- 
ferior to their opponents in skill than they were in 
force. The gunnery of the Americans showed itself 
to the end much better than the gunnery of the 
British. The former used sights for their guns, 
and were trained to try to make each shot tell, 
while even in Nelson's day, and still more after his 
death, the British cared more for rapidity of fire 
than for exactness of aim. They sought to get so 
close to their antagonists that the shots could not 
well miss. But a badly aimed gun has infinite 
capacity for missing, even at close range. 

The first of the new American sloops to get to 
sea was the Frolic, 22, so named after the prize cap- 
tured by the old Wasp in 1812. She cruised for a 
couple of months under Master-Commandant Joseph 
Bainbridge, and among other deeds, sank a large 
Carthagenan privateer, nearly a hundred of her crew 
of Spaniards, West Indians, and the like, being 
drowned. Finally, "on April 20th, 1814, she was 
captured after a long chase by the British 36-gun 
frigate Orpheus, Captain Hugh Pigot (3), and the 
12-gun schooner Shelbume, Lieutenant David Hope. 1 

The Peacock, 22, Captain Lewis Warrington, 
sailed from New York on March 12th, 1814. On 

1 The Frolic was added to the Royal Navy as the Florida. — 
W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 259 



April 29th, in latitude 27° 47' N.., longitude 80° 7' 
W., he encountered a small convoy of merchantmen 
under the protection of the British 18-gun brig-sloop 
Epervier, Commander Richard Walter Wales. The 
Peacock had one hundred and sixty-six men in crew, 
and carried two long 12's and twenty 32-pr. carron- 
ades, like the rest of her class. The Epervier had 
one hundred and eighteen in crew, and carried six- 
teen 32-pr. and two 18-pr. carronades. In broadside 
force the difference was about five to four. How- 
ever, Wales hauled up to engage, while the convoy 
made all sail away. 

The Peacock came down with the wind nearly aft, 
while the Epervier stood toward her close hauled. 
At 10.20 a. m. they exchanged broadsides, each using 
the starboard battery. The Epervier then eased 
away, and the two vessels ran off side by side, the 
Englishman firing his port guns, while Warrington 
still used the starboard battery, aiming at the brig's 
hull. The Epervier did practically no damage 
whatsoever, while she was heavily punished by her 
adversary. Commander Wales's crew, moreover, 
showed a lack of courage such as was very unusual 
in the service, muttering sullenly that the American 
was too heavy for them. Half an hour after close 
action had begun, most of the guns on the engaged 
side of the Epervier had been dismounted by the 
Peacock's shot, or owing to defective breeching-bolts, 
or carelessness in the handling ; her hull had been 
struck forty-five times ; her masts were badly 



260 Naval Operations of the War Between 

wounded ; there were five feet of water in her hold ; 
twenty-three of her men were killed or wounded ; * 
and she struck her colours. The Peacock had lost 
but two men, both slightly wounded ; and there had 
been some trifling damage aloft ; but her hull was 
not touched. In other words, the Epervier was cut 
to pieces, and the Peacock hardly scratched. 2 War- 
rington put a prize crew on board the captured brig, 
and brought her in safety to the United States, 
though on the way the vessels were chased by two 
British frigates. These Warrington succeeded in 
drawing after his own ship, which was very fast, 
and could, he was sure, outsail his pursuers. The 
event justified his judgment. The Peacock again 
sailed on June 4th, and cruised in the mouth of the 
Irish Channel, round the west and northern coast of 
Ireland, and finally in the Bay of Biscay. She 
escaped from the frigates that chased her, and cap- 
tured fourteen merchantmen : a record which could 
have been equalled by few of the privateers, although 
the latter devoted themselves entirely to preying on 
commerce. 

The Wasp, a sister ship of the Peacock, and named 
in honour of the old Wasp, left Portsmouth, 
Virginia, on May 1st, 1814, under the command of 
Captain Johnston Blakely, with a very fine crew of 

1 Among the severely wounded was Lieutenant John Hackett. — 
W. L. C. 

2 James's 'Naval Occurrences,' 243; Navy Dept. MSS., Letters 
of Warrington April 29th and June 1st; American State Papers, 
xiv. 427 ; Memoirs of Admiral Codrington, i. 322. 



Great Britain and the United States 261 



one hundred and seventy-three men, almost exclu- 
sively New Englanders. Her cruise, both because of 
her signal daring and success, and because of the 
tragic mystery of her end, became one of the most 
famous in the annals of the American navy. She 
slipped through the blockaders and ran right across 
to the mouth of the English Channel. There she 
remained for several weeks, burning and scuttling 
many ships. Finally, on June 28th, in the 
morning, she made out a sail which proved to be the 
18-gun British brig-sloop Reindeer, Commander 
William Manners. The Reindeer was armed with 
24-pr. carronades and had a crew of one hundred and 
eighteen, so that Manners knew that he had to do 
with a foe who was half as heavy again as himself. 
But in all the British Navy, rich as it was with men 
who cared but little for odds of size or strength, there 
was no more gallant or more skilful commander 
than Manners, nor were there braver or better 
trained men than those under him. As day broke 
the Reindeer made sail for the Wasp with the wind 
nearly aft. The sky was cloudy and the light 
breeze barely rippled the sea, so that the vessels 
stood on almost even keels. All the morning they 
slowly drew together, each captain striving to get or 
to keep the water-gage. The afternoon had well 
begun before the rolling drums beat to quarters, and it 
was three o'clock when the two sloops came into colli- 
sion. The Wasp was running slowly off with the 
wind a little forward of the port beam, brailing up 



262 Naval Operations of the War Between 

her mizen, while the Reindeer closed on her weather 
quarter with the flying-jib hoisted. When but sixty 
yards apart the British fired their shifting 12-pr. 
carronade, loaded with round and grape, into the 
Wasjj. This was the only gun in either ship that 
would bear, and five times it was discharged, before, 
at twenty-six minutes past three, Captain Blakely, 
finding that the Reindeer was not coming on his beam, 
put his helm a-lee and luffed up, firing his port guns 
from aft forward as they bore. A biscuit could have 
been tossed from one vessel to the other as the two 
lay abreast. The heavy metal of the American was 
too much for the Reindeer. Manners himself was 
mortally wounded, and was hit again and again, but 
he would not leave his post, and continued to cheer 
and hearten his men. The vessels had come close 
together ; and, putting his helm a-weather, he ran 
the Wasp aboard on her port quarter, and called 
the boarders forward to try the last desperate chance 
of a hand to hand conflict. But Blakely fought with 
the same courage and skill as were shown by his 
antagonist, and used his greatly superior force to the 
utmost advantage. As the vessels ground together 
the men hacked and thrust at one another through 
the open port holes. The Americans gathered aft 
to repel boarders, the marines, cutlassmen and pike- 
men clustering close to the bulwarks, while the top- 
men kept up a deadly fire. Then through the smoke 
the British boarders sprang, only to die or to be 
hurled back on their own decks, while the Reindeer s 



Great Britain and the United States 263 

marines kept answering the American fire. As his 
men recoiled, Manners, mortally wounded, but, high 
of heart and unconquerable save by death, sprang, 
sword in hand, into the rigging to lead them on once 
more ; and they rallied behind him. At that 
moment a ball from the Wasp's main-top crashed 
through his head, and, with his sword closely grasped 
in his right hand, he fell back dead on his own deck, 
while above him the flag for which he had given his 
life still floated. As he fell Blakely passed the word 
to board. With wild hurrahs the Americans 
swarmed over the hammock nettings ; the wreck of 
the British crew was swept away by the rush ; and 
the Captain's Clerk, Mr. Richard Collins, the senior 
officer left, surrendered the brig just eighteen minutes 
after the Wasp had fired her first broadside. Twenty- 
six of the Wasps crew and sixty-seven 1 of the Rein- 
deer s were killed or wounded. 2 

In neither navy was any ship ever more bravely 
and more skilfully fought than either the Wasp or 
the Reindeer, and the defeated side showed them- 
selves heroes indeed. In courage, seamanship, and 
gunnery, there was nothing to choose between the 

1 The Reindeer lost 25 killed and 42 wounded. Among the 
killed were Commander Manners and Purser John Thomas Teuton; 
among the wounded, Lieutenant Thomas Chambers, Master's Mate 
Matthew Mitchell, and Midshipman Henry Hardiraan. Manners 
was a young Commander of February 7th, 1812. and was an excel- 
lent and idolised officer. — W. L. C. 

2 Letter of Captain Blakely, July 8th, 1814; Cooper, ii. 287; 
James, vi. 294 (ed. 1837). 



264 Naval Operations of the War Between 

two combatants; and the advantage lay with the 
nation whose forethought had provided the better 
ship. In all these naval duels no victorious ship, 
except the Shannon, suffered so heavy a relative loss 
as the Reindeer inflicted on the Wasp, and, before 
accepting defeat, the Reindeer herself had suffered 
more than any other defeated ship, except the Frolic. 
The Wasp burned her prize, and sailed into the 
French port of Lorient to refit. On August 27th 
she sailed again, making two prizes in the first 
three days. On the 1st of September she came 
upon a convoy of ten sail under the protection of 
the Armada, 74, bound for Gibraltar. Confident in 
her speed and in the seamanship of the crew, 
Blakely hovered round the convoy, though chased 
off again and again by the two-decker, and finally 
cut off and captured a ship laden with iron and 
brass cannon, muskets, and other military stores of 
value. He was then on a cruising ground traversed 
in every direction by British warships and mer- 
chantmen, and on the evening of the same day he 
made out four sail, of whom it afterwards turned 
out that three were cruisers, being the British ship- 
sloop Tartarus, 20, and the brig-sloops Avon, 18, and 
Castilian, 18. Blakely soon became convinced that 
three of the four were hostile vessels of war. 
Nevertheless he determined to engage one of them 
after nightfall, hoping to sink or capture her before 
either of her consorts could come to her aid. It was 
a very bold determination, but it was justified by 



Great Britain and the United States 265 



the Wasps efficiency as a fighting machine. Blakely 
had less men in crew than when he fought the 
Reindeer, but, profiting by his experience with the 
latter, he had taken on board her 12-pr. carronade. 

The three British sloops were in chase of an 
American privateer schooner, while the American 
sloop in her turn chased them. The privateer out- 
sailed her pursuers, and the latter gradually drew 
apart until the headmost, the Castilian, was nine 
miles distant from the rearmost, the Avon, when, 
late in the afternoon, the Wasp began to approach 
the latter. The Avon was under the command of 
Commander the Hon. James Arbuthnot. She carried 
twenty guns, including sixteen 32-pr. carronades, a 
light shifting carronade, two long guns as bow- 
chasers, and another light long-gun as stern-chaser. 
Her crew numbered one hundred and seventeen. 
The odds against her in point of force were thus far 
less than in the case of the Reindeer, being about 
what they were against the Epervier, or five to four 
in weight of broadside. As the Wasp approached, 
the Avon, not desiring to encounter her single- 
handed, began signalling with her lanterns to her 
consorts ahead, and when she met with no response 
she fired signal shots to them. 1 

Soon after 9 p.m. the Wasp, steering free through 
the darkness, got on the weather quarter of the 
Avon, and the vessels exchanged hails. The action 

1 According to some British accounts, the night-signals and the 
shots were directed to the Wasp. James, 297 [ed. 1837]. — W. L. C. 



266 Naval Operations of the War Between 

began by the Wasp firing her 12-pr. carronade, and 
the Avon responding, first with her stern-chaser, and 
then with her aftermost port guns. Blakely put 
his helm up lest his adversary should try to escape, 
ran to leeward of her, fired his port broadside into 
her quarter, and then ranged up on her starboard 
beam. 1 A furious night fight followed at very short 
range. The Wasp's men did not know the name of 
their antagonist, but her black hull loomed clearly 
through the night, and aloft in her tops the clus- 
tered forms of her sailors could be seen against the 
sky. Four round shot struck the Wasp's hull, kill- 
ing two men ; and another man was wounded by a 
wad. This was all she suffered below, but aloft her 
rigging was a good deal cut, for the practice of the 
Avon was bad, her guns being pointed too high. 
The Wasp's fire, on the contrary, was directed 
with deadly precision. The A voris hull was riddled 
through and through, until there were seven feet 
of water in the hold, the lower masts were wounded, 
and the standing and running rigging were cut to 
pieces. Five of the starboard guns were dismounted, 
and forty-two of the crew killed or wounded. 2 Less 
than three quarters of an hour 3 after the beginning 
of the action she struck her colours. 

1 Blakely's letter, Sept. 8th, 1814. 

2 The number killed was 10, including Lieutenant John Prender- 
gast ; the number wounded was 32, including Commander Arbuth- 
not, Lieutenant John Plarvey (4), and Midshipman'John Travers. — 
W. L. C. 

3 According to the British accounts, the action began at 9.26 p. m., 



Great Britain and the United States 267 



While Blakely was lowering away the boat to 
take possession, the Castilian, Commander George 
Lloyd (actg. ), made her appearance, and soon after- 
wards the Tartarus also approached. 1 They had 
been recalled by the noise of the cannonade, and 
had come up under a press of sail. When the 
Castilian came in sight Blakely again called his men 
to quarters, and made ready for battle; but the 
appearance of the Tartarus forced him to relinquish 
the idea of fighting. Accordingly, the braces having 
been cut away, the Wasp was put before the wind 
until new ones could be rove. The Castilian fol- 
lowed her, but the Avon had begun to fire minute- 
guns and make signals of distress, and Commander 
Lloyd deemed it his duty to put back to her assist- 
ance. He accordingly returned to his consort, after 
firing his lee guns over the weather quarter of the 
Wasp, cutting her rigging slightly, but not touching 
a man, nor doing any other damage. He consoled 
himself by reporting that if he had been able to 
attack the Wasp she would have " fallen an easy 
prey " to him, and that he did not doubt that his 
broadside was "most destructive." 2 The Avon sank 
soon afterwards. 

James comments on this action as follows : " The 
gallantry of the Avon's crew cannot for a moment 

and the Avon surrendered at 10.12 p.m. ; but James (vi. 298, ed. 
1837) shows grounds for believing that the surrender occurred at 
nearly 11 p. if. — W. L. C. 

1 NUes's Register, vi. 216. 

2 Letter of Lloyd, Sept. 2nd, 1814 ; Adams, viii. 190. 



268 Naval Operations of the War Between 



be questioned, but the gunnery of the latter appears 
to have been not a whit better than, to the discredit 
of the British Navy, had frequently before been dis- 
played in combats of this kind. Nor, from the 
specimen given by the Castilian, is it likely that she 
would have performed any better." 1 As for the 
Wasp, she had performed a most notable feat of 
cool daring and skilful prowess. 

She next cruised southward and westward, taking 
and scuttling or sending in several prizes, one of 
much value. On October 9th she spoke the Swedish 
brig Adonis, which had on board a couple of the 
officers formerly of the Essex, on their way to 
England from Brazil. This was the last that was 
heard of the gallant Wasp. How she perished none 
ever knew. All that is certain is that she was never 
seen again. In all the navies of the world at that 
time there were no better sloop and no braver or 
better captain and crew. 

The blockading squadrons watched with special 
vigilance the harbours containing American frigates. 
Three frigates cruised off Boston, where the Consti- 
tution lay, and four off New York, where Decatur 
kept the President ready to put to sea at the first 
opportunity. The Constitution, always a lucky ship, 
managed to take advantage of a temporary absence 
of the three frigates that were watching her and 
slipped to sea. The President made a similar 
attempt, but fared badly. 

1 James, vi. 299 (ed. 1837). 



Great Britain and the United States 269 



The Peacock and Hornet were lying with her, all 
three intending to start on a cruise for the East 
Indies, where they hoped to do much damage to 
British trade. The blockading squadron off the 
port consisted of the Majestic, 56, Captain John 
Hayes, with long 32-prs. on the main-deck, and 
42 pr. carronades on the spar-deck, the Endymkm, 
40, Captain Henry Hope, carrying twenty-six 24-prs. 
on her main-deck, and twenty-two 32-pr. carronades 
and two bow-chasers on her spar-deck, with a crew 
of about three hundred and fifty men ; and the two 
38-gun frigates Pomone, Captain John Richard 
Lumley, and Tenedos, Captain Hyde Parker (3). 
On January 14th, 1815, a severe snow-storm blew 
them off the coast. Hayes was sure that the Presi- 
dent would take advantage of their absence to slip 
out ; and he shaped his course back with a view to 
the course which the escaping American would be 
apt to take. 1 The event justified his judgment. 

The President had tried to put to sea in the gale, 
but she struck on the bar, where she beat heavily 
for an hour and a half, springing her masts and 
becoming so hogged and twisted that she would 
have put back to port if the storm had not blown 
so furiously as to render it impossible. 2 Before day- 
light next morning, Sandy Hook bearing W.N.W., 
fifteen leagues distant, she ran into the British 

1 Letters of Rear-Adm. the Hon. Sir Henry Hotham, Jan. 23rd, 
1715, and Captain Hayes, Jan. 17th, 1815. 

2 Letters of Decatur, Jan. 18th and March 6th, 1814; Report of 
court-martial, April 20th, 1815. 



270 Naval Operations of the War Between 

squadron, and a headlong chase followed. During 
the early part of the day, when the wind was still 
strong, the powerful Majestic went better than any 
of the other ships, and fired occasionally at the 
President without effect. The Pomone towards 
noon began to gain rapidly, and would have over- 
taken the President had she not been sent to 
investigate the Tenedos, which turned up in an 
unexpected quarter, and was mistaken for another 
American ship. In the afternoon the wind became 
light and baffling, and the Endymion forged to the 
front and gained rapidly on the President, which 
was making a large amount of water in consequence 
of the injuries which she had received while on the 
bar. For three hours the ships occasionally inter- 
changed shots from their bow and stern chasers. At 
about half-past five the Endymion drew up close, and 
began to pour in her broadsides on the President's 
starboard quarter, where not a gun of the latter 
would bear. For half an hour the President bore 
the battering as best she might, unable to retaliate ; 
and she did not like to alter her course, lest she 
should lessen her chance of escape. Moreover, 
Decatur expected the Endymion to come up abeam. 
But Captain Hope kept his position by yawing, not 
wishing to forfeit his advantage. In this he was 
quite right, for the President suffered more during 
the half-hour when she had to endure the unre- 
turned fire of her opponent than during the entire 
remainder of the combat. At six o'clock Decatur 



Great Britain and the United States 271 

found his position unbearable, and kept off, heading 
to the south. The two frigates ran abreast, the 
Americans using the starboard, the British the port, 
battery. Decatur tried to close with his antagonist, 
but the latter, being both a lighter and a swifter 
ship, hauled up and frustrated the attempt. The 
President then endeavoured to dismantle the British 
frigate, and thus get rid of her. In this she was 
successful. The Endymion s sails were cut from her 
yards, and she fell astern, the fire gradually dying 
away on both sides. The last shot was fired from 
the President. 1 Three hours afterwards, at eleven 
o'clock, the Pomone caught up with the President, 
and gave her two broadsides, which killed and 
wounded a considerable number of people. The 
Endymion was out of sight astern. Decatur did not 
return the fire, but surrendered, and was taken pos- 
session of by the Tenedos. He delivered his sword 
to Captain Hayes of the Majestic. In the President 
twenty-four were killed, and fifty wounded ; 2 in the 
Endymion eleven were killed and fourteen wounded. 
Two days afterwards, in a gale, all three of the 
President's, and two of the Endymion s masts went 
by the board, and the Endymion, in addition, had to 
throw overboard her quarter-deck and forecastle 
guns. 

1 Log of Pomone, ' Naval Chronicle,' xxxiii. 370. 

2 Neither Hope nor Hayes in his letter gives details of the loss 
suffered by the President. James (vi. 365, ed. 1837), without speci- 
fying his authority, says that the President lost 35 killed and 70 
wounded. — W. L. C. 



272 Naval Operations of the War Between 

This was an important success for the British. 
It was won by the vigilance of Captain Hayes, and 
the foresight of the British in stationing ample 
blockading squadrons off the harbours where the 
American frigates lay. The Endymion was a much 
lighter ship than the President, and could not be 
expected to capture her, for the President had a 
hundred more men in crew, two more guns in broad- 
side on the main-deck, and 42's instead of 32's on 
the spar-deck. What Captain Hope could do he 
did ; that is, hang on the quarter of an enemy who 
had no choice but flight, pouring in broadsides 
which could not be returned, and then, when he 
did engage, keep up the battle as long as possible, 
and do as much damage as he could, before dropping 
out of the combat. The relative loss is of course 
no criterion of the merits of the fight, because the 
President was trying to escape. She did not at- 
tempt to return the earliest and most destructive 
broadsides of the Endymion, and afterwards devoted 
her attention chiefly to the effort to unrig her 
opponent, while part of her loss was caused by the 
two unreturned broadsides of the Pomone. So far 
as the Endymion is concerned, Decatur seems to have 
done all he could, and no severe censure could be 
passed on him for surrendering when attacked by a 
fresh frigate, with another close astern. It cer- 
tainly seems, however, that it would have been 
worth his while to try at least a few broadsides on 
the Pomone. A lucky shot might have taken out 



Great Britain and the United States 273 



one of her masts and then he would have had a 
chance to dispose of the Tenedos and make good his 
escape. Of course it was not much of a chance, 
but there were plenty of captains in both the British 
and the American navies who would certainly have 
taken advantage of it. 

After escaping from Boston, the Constitution, 44, 
Captain Charles Stewart, went to Bermuda, thence 
to the Bay of Biscay, and finally towards Madeira. 
On February 20th, 1815, the latter island bearing 
W.S.W. 60 leagues, she encountered two British 
ships, the frigate-built Cyane, 22, Captain Gordon 
Thomas Falcon, and the flush-decked Levant, 20, 
Captain the Hon. George Douglas. The Cyane 
carried twenty-two 32-pr. carronades on her main- 
deck, and, on her spar-deck, two long 6's, eight 
18-pr. carronades, and a 12-pr. boat carronade. 
The Levant carried eighteen 32-pr. carronades, and 
two long 9's, together with a 12-pr. boat carronade. 
The Cyane had about 170, and the Levant about 130 
in crew. The Constitution carried about 450 men. 

The two ships together could not be considered as 
powerful as a 08-gun frigate like the Java or the 
Guerriere, which the Constitution had already cap- 
tured. Nevertheless the two British captains very 
gallantly, but not very discreetly, came to the con- 
clusion to try their luck with the Constitution. Five 
years earlier two such vessels, the Rainbow and the 
Avon, had fought a draw with the French 40-gun 
frigate JVJreide, the odds against them being just 

18 



274 Naval Operations of the War Between 



about as heavy as against the Cyane and Levant; 
but on this occasion the two small craft had to deal 
with a much more formidable antagonist than any 
French frigate; and nothing in their own skill, or 
in the events of the preceding three years of warfare 
with the Americans, warranted their making the 
experiment. 

The Constitution came down off the wind, while 
the two ships hauled close to the wind to try to 
weather her, so as to delay action until after night- 
fall, when they hoped that the darkness would 
favour their manoeuvres. The frigate came down 
too fast, however, and the British stripped to fight- 
ing canvas, and stood on the starboard tack, the 
Levant a cable's length ahead of the Cyane. The 
Const (tul ion's long guns would have enabled her to 
cut the two craft to pieces without damage to her- 
self, as she was to windward ; but this would have 
involved the risk of one or the other of them escap- 
ing ; and she ranged up to windward of them, with 
the Levant on her port bow and the Cyane on her 
port quarter, close enough for the marines to begin 
firing soon after the engagement began. 1 There was 
a bright moon, but the smoke hung so heavily that 
at one time the firing ceased, the antagonists not 
being able to distinguish one another. There was 
some dexterous manoeuvring, all three ships endeav- 

1 Letter of Captain Charles Stewart, May 20th, 1815; Log of 
Constitution Feb. 20th, 1815; 'Naval Chrouicle,' xxxiii. 466; Niles, 
viii. 219, 363, 383. 



Great Britain and the United States 275 



ouring to rake or avoid being raked, and at 6.50 p.m., 
just forty minutes after the beginning of the action, 
the Cyane submitted and was taken possession of. 

When the prize had been manned, Stewart made 
sail after her consort, which had run off to leeward. 
Captain Douglas had only gone out of the combat to 
refit, however, and, as soon as he had rove new 
braces, he hauled to the wind and stood back in 
search of his consort, an act of loyal gallantry which 
should not be forgotten. At 8.50 p.m. 1 he met the 
huge frigate, and passed under her battery, the Con- 
stitution and Levant going in opposite directions and 
exchanging broadsides. Finding that the Cyane had 
surrendered, and it being, of course, utterry impos- 
sible for a ship of his force to fight the Constitution, 
Douglas crowded all sail to escape, but was over- 
taken and captured half an hour afterwards. Of 
the 302 men on board the British ships, 41 were 
killed or wounded ; 2 of the 451 men on board the 
Constitution, 15 were killed or wounded, and she was 
hulled eleven times, more often than by either the 
Guerriere or the Java. She was of such superior 
force that only a very real inferiority of skill on her 
part would have enabled her enemies to make it a 
drawn combat. As a matter of fact both sides 
fought well ; but the Constitution captured her foes 

1 The time given in the British accounts is 8.30 p. m., and the 
time of striking at 10.30 p. M. — W. L. C. 

2 The Levant had G killed and 16 wounded ; the Cyane, 6 killed 
and 13 wounded. — W. L. C. 



276 Naval Operations of the War Between 

without suffering any material loss or damage. The 
gallantry of the two British captains was con- 
spicuous, but they did not show good judgment in 
engaging, for, as has been said, there was nothing 
in their experience to justify the belief that their 
conduct would result otherwise than it did, — that is, 
in an easy victory for their antagonist. 1 

Stewart took his prizes to the Cape de Verde 
Islands, and anchored in Porto Praya on March 10th. 
A hundred of the prisoners were landed to help fit 
out a brig which was taken as a cartel. Next day 
the weather was thick and foggy, with fresh breezes, 
and at noon the upper canvas of a large vessel was 
suddenly made out, just above the fog bank, sailing 
towards the harbour. Immediately afterwards the 
canvas of two other ships was discovered, and it 
became evident that all three were heavy frigates. 
In fact they were the very three ships which had 
blockaded the Constitution off Boston : the Leander, 
50, Captain Sir George Ralph Collier, K. C. B. ; the 
Newcastle, 50, Captain Lord George Stuart ; and the 
Acasta, 40, Captain Alexander Robert Kerr. 2 
Captain Stewart knew that the neutrality of the 
port would not save him, and that there was not a 
minute to lose if he wished to escape. As it was, 

1 Captains Douglas and Falcon were tried on board the Akbar, at 
Halifax, on June 28th, 1815, for the loss of their ships, and were 
most honourably acquitted. — W. L. C. 

2 Log of Constitution, March 11th, 1815; Letters of Lieut. Hoff- 
man, April 10th, and of Lieut. Ballard, May 2nd ; Marshall's ' Naval 
Biography,' ii. 533. 



Great Britain and the United States 277 



only the perfect training of his officers and men 
enabled him to get out. Signalling to his prizes to 
follow him, he cut his cables, and, in less than ten 
minutes from the time when the first frigate was 
seen, all three vessels were standing out of the 
harbour, the Levant being commanded by Lieutenant 
Hoffman, and the Cyane by Lieutenant Ballard. 
The prisoners on shore promptly manned a Portu- 
guese battery and delivered a furious, but ill-directed 
firQ at the retreating Constitution, Levant, and C/jane. 
They stood out of the harbour in that order on the 
port tack, all to windward of the British squadron. 
The Americans made out the force of the strangers 
correctly, and the Acasta discerned the force of the 
Americans with equal clearness ; but the Leander 
and Neivcastle mistook the two sloops for American 
frigates — an error, by the way, which the American 
Captain Rodgers had once committed in regard to a 
couple of British ships which he encountered, a sloop 
and a little 12-pr. frigate. 

The British ships made all sail in chase, the New- 
castle and Leander on the Constitufioiis lee quarter, 
and the Acasta well to windward of them. In an 
hour the Cyane had fallen so far astern and to lee- 
ward that Captain Stewart signalled to Hoffman 
to tack lest he should be cut off. Hoffman did so, 
and escaped unmolested, no British ship following 
him. He took his prize safely to the United States. 
Half an hour later the Newcastle opened on the 
Constitution, but the shot fell short. Though so 



278 Naval Operations of the War Between 



close, the commanders of the two 50-gun ships still 
apparently mistook the Levant, which was a low 
flush-decked sloop, for an American frigate. At 
three o'clock she had sagged so as to be in the same 
position as that from which the Cyane had just been 
rescued. Accordingly, Captain Stewart signalled to 
her to tack. She did so, whereupon all three British 
ships tacked in pursuit. Such a movement is inex- 
plicable, for, even had the Levant been a frigate, the 
rearmost 50-gun ship alone would have been enough 
to send after her, while the other two should not 
have abandoned the chase of the Constitution. It is 
said that there was a mistake in the signalling, but 
the blunder was never satisfactorily explained. At 
any rate, Stewart got off in safety, and, when he 
learned of the peace, returned to New York. 

Meanwhile Lieutenant Ballard took the Levant 
back to Porto Praya, and anchored a couple of 
hundred yards from a heavy battery on the shore. 
The event justified the wisdom of Captain Stewart 
in not trusting to the neutrality of the port. All 
three British frigates opened upon the Levant as 
soon as they got into the harbour, while the British 
prisoners on shore fired the guns of the battery at 
her. The Levant was at anchor, and did not resist ; 
and the gunnery of her assailants was so bad that 
not a man in her was killed by the broadsides of 
the three heavy frigates, though she was a station- 
ary target in smooth water. The chief effect of the 
fire was to damage the houses of the Portuguese town. 



Great Britain and the United States 279 



A week after the President's effort to run the 
blockade out of New York, the Peacock and Hornet 
made the same attempt, with more success. On 
January 22nd a strong north-westerly gale began to 
blow, and the two sloops at once prepared to take 
advantage of the heavy weather. They passed the 
bar by daylight under storm canvas, the British 
frigates lying-to in the south-east, in plain sight 
from the decks of the sloops. A few days out they 
parted company, intending to meet at Tristan 
d'Acunha. 

The Hornet was then under the command of 
Captain James Biddle, and she had on board a crew 
of about one hundred and forty men. 1 She reached 
the island on the 23rd of March, and was about to 
anchor, when she made out a strange sail, which 
proved to be the British brig-sloop Penguin, 18, 
Commander James Dickinson ^3), with a crew of 
one hundred and thirty-two men, she having taken 
on board twelve extra marines from the Medway, 
74. The Hornet carried twenty guns, all 32-pr. 
carronades, except two long 12's for bow-chasers. 
The Penguin carried nineteen guns : sixteen 32-pr. 
carronades, two long 6's as bow-chasers, and a 
12-pr. carronade. The difference in force was tri- 

1 Her muster rolls, in the Treasury Department at Washington, 
show that when she left New York she had about 14G officers and 
crew all told, including 20 marines ; but she had manned a prize. 
The same rolls show the names of 122 prisoners which she took out 
of the Penguin; and ten of the Penguin'' s crew were killed in the 
fight or died immediately afterwards. 



280 Naval Operations of the War Between 



fling, but such as it was, it was in favour of the 
Americans. 

The two ships began action at 1.40 p.m., within 
musket-shot of one another, running on the star- 
board tack, the Penguin to windward. 1 After a 
quarter of an hour of close action Commander 
Dickinson put his helm a-weather to run his adver- 
sary aboard. Almost at the same moment he was 
mortally wounded, and the first lieutenant, James 
M'Donald, endeavoured to carry out his intentions. 
The Penguins bowsprit came in between the Hornet's 
main and mizen rigging, but the sea was very 
rough, and no attempt at boarding was made. As 
the Hornet forged ahead, the Penguins bowsprit 
carried away her mizen shrouds, stern davits, and 
spanker boom, and the brig then hung on the ship's 
starboard quarter, so that none of the big guns 
could be used on either side. A British officer 
called out something which Biddle understood to be 
the word of surrender. Accordingly, he directed 
his marines to cease firing, and jumped on to the 
taffrail, but was himself at once shot and wounded 
rather severely in the neck by two of the marines 
on the Penguins forecastle, both of whom were 
killed in another moment by the marines of the 
Hornet. As the ships drew apart the Penguins 
foremast went overboard. Her hull was riddled, 

i Biddle's letter, March 25th, 1815; M'Donald's letter, April 6th, 
1815; Vice-Adm. Tyler to Commander Dickinson, .Jan. 3rd, 1815; 
James, vi. 498 ; Niles, viii. 345. 



Great Britain and the United States 281 



and most of the guns on her engaged side were dis- 
mounted, while thirty-eight of her men were killed 
or wounded. 1 Thereupon, she struck her colours at 
two minutes past two, but twenty-two minutes after 
the first gun had been fired. In the Hornet one 
man was killed, and ten were wounded, chiefly by 
musketry fire, for not a round shot struck her hull. 
Next day Biddle destroyed his prize. 

This was the last regular action of the war. In 
it the British displayed their usual gallantry, but it 
is astonishing that their gunnery should have con- 
tinued so bad. Dickinson laid down his life for the 
flag which he served ; and when a man does that 
it is difficult to criticise him ; but the gunnery of 
the Penguin was certainly as poor as that of any of 
the British ships in 1812. The Hornet showed the 
utmost efficiency in every way. There was no 
falling-off from her already very high standard of 
seamanship and gunnery. 

Next day the Peacock joined the Hornet, and on 
April 2nd the two started for the East Indies. On 
the 27th of the month they made sail after what 
they supposed to be an Indiaman, but, when they 
got close, discovered, to their consternation, that 
she was the Cornwatlis, 74, Captain John Bayley, 
bearing the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir George Burl- 

1 The Penguin had 6 killed, including Commander Dickinson, 4 
mortally wounded, and 28 otherwise wounded, including Lieutenant 
John Elwin, Master's Mate John Holmes Bond, and Midshipman 
John Noyes. James Dickinson (3) was a Commander of October 
21st, 1810. — W. L. C. 



282 Naval Operations of the War Between 

ton, K.C.B. The Peacock, a very fast vessel, was 
speedily out of danger, but the Hornet endured a 
forty-eight hours' chase. 1 By daylight of the 29th 
the 74 was within gunshot of the sloop, and opened 
fire upon her. Throughout the early part of the 
day the Hornet was several times on the very edge 
of capture. More than once she was within fair 
range of the 74's long guns, and the latter not only 
used her bow-chasers but also hauled up to deliver 
broadsides. On each occasion Biddle gained a brief 
respite by lightening ship, throwing overboard by 
degrees all his spare spars, stores, anchors, shot, 
boats, ballast, and all the guns but one. The guns 
of the Cormvallis were very unskilfully served, and 
but three shot got home. In the afternoon the 
sloop was saved by a shift in the wind, which 
brought her to windward ; and, as it blew fresher 
and fresher, she got further ahead. When day 
broke the two-decker was hull down astern, and, 
shortly afterwards, abandoned the pursuit. 

The Peacock rounded the Cape of Good Hope and 
captured four great Indiamen, very valuable prizes. 
Then on the 30th of June, in the Straits of Sunda, 
she fell in with the East India Company's cruiser 
Nautilus, a brig of not half her force. 2 The Nautilus 
informed Captain Warrington of the peace, but 
Warrington chose to disbelieve the information, and 
ordered the brig's commander Lieutenant Charles 

1 Biddle's letter of June 10th; Log of Hornet. 

2 ' History of the Indian Navy,' by Charles Rathbone Low, p. 285. 



Great Britain and the United States 283 



Boyce, I.N., to haul down his colours. This the 
latter refused to do until a couple of broadsides had 
been exchanged, when he surrendered, having had 
fifteen men killed or wounded. The Peacock was 
not even scratched. There was no excuse whatso- 
ever for Warrington's conduct. It was on a par 
with that of Commander Bartholomew, of the 
British sloop Erebus, mentioned above. 

This was the last expiring sputter of the war. 
Peace had been declared ; and, while Warrington 
was cruising in the far Indian seas, his countrymen 
at home were building and launching ships of the 
line, and Decatur was preparing to lead a squadron 
against the Moorish pirates. 

The United States' Navy ended the war far 
stronger than it had begun it ; and in the list of 
the United States' vessels for 1815 there appeared 
two novel engines of destruction, the forerunners of 
their kind, the heralds of the revolution which, fifty 
years later, opened a new era in naval warfare. In 
the United States' Navy List for 1815 appeared the 
names of the war-steamer Fulton, and of the Torpedo. 
During the war several efforts had been made by the 
Americans to destroy British vessels with torpedoes, 
but nothing had been accomplished beyond maki 
some ships wary about venturing into good anchor- 
age, especially in Long Island Sound. The Fulton, 
with her clumsy central wheel concealed from shot by 
a double hull, with scantling so thick that light guns 
could not harm her, and with, instead of broadside 



284 Naval Operations of the War Between 

batteries of light guns, two 100-pr. columbiads on 
pivots, was the prototype of the modem steam 
ironclad. 

The war had ended, and the treaty * left matters 
precisely as they were before the war began ; yet it 
would be idle to say that, for either side, the war 
was not worth fighting. To Great Britain it was 
probably a necessary incident of the Napoleonic 
struggle, for neither the British statesmen of that 
day, nor the people whom they governed, realised 
either the power or the rights of the United States. 
To America it was certainly a necessary prerequisite 
for attaining the dignity and self-respect of a free 
nation. The war left enduring memories of glory, 
and courage, and love of country, which more than 
made up for the loss of blood. Moreover, the war 
taught certain lessons which should have been, 
although perhaps they were not, well pondered by 
the statesmen of the two countries, and especially 
by those who had, or have, to do with shaping the 
national policy of either. Nations must be prepared 
for war: lack of preparation, laxness in organisa- 
tion, invite disasters which can be but partially 
repaired. The successes of the American cruisers 
show that no power can afford to lull itself to sleep 

1 A convention was signed at Ghent on December 24th, 1814, but 
the convention was only a compromise, which left undecided all the 
chief points upon which the two countries had been at issue, and 
which reserved certain questions for future negotiation. As has 
been seen, definite news of the peace did not reach outlying stations 
until two or three months later. — W. L. C. 



Great Britain and the United States 285 



by the dream of invincibility. A nation should see 
that its ships are of the best, and that the men who 
man them are trained to the highest point of effi- 
ciency. The terrific pressure of the British blockade 
on the American coast, and the utter impotence of 
America to break it, show, what has already been 
shown ten thousand times, that the assumption of a 
simple defensive in war is ruin. Success can only 
come where war is waged aggressively. It is not 
enough to parry the blows of the enemy. In order 
to win, the foe must himself be struck, and struck 
heavily 

The sea-power of the British, the unceasing pres- 
sure of the British fleet, veiw nearly made the 
struggle a victory for Great Britain ; but the tri- 
umphs of the American squadrons on the lakes, and 
of the frigates and sloops on the ocean, and the ruth- 
less harrying of the British trade by the American 
commerce-destroyers, inflicted such severe punish- 
ment as to make the British more than willing to 
call the fight a draw. 1 



1 The history of the Hartford Convention is proof enough of how 
near the United States were to disaster. The impression produced 
in Great Britain by the prowess of the American ships is shown in a 
letter from the British naval historian, William James, to George 
Canning, in 1827, when war was once more threatened. " One 
[merchant] says, ' We had better cede a point or two than go to war 
with the United States.' ' Yes,' says another, 'for we shall get 
nothing but hard knocks there ! ' ' True,' adds a third, ' and what 
is worse than all, our seamen are more than half afraid to meet the 
Americans at sea!' Unfortunately this depression of feeling, this 
cowed spirit, prevails very generally over the community, even 



286 Naval Operations of the War Between 



The man who is anxious to learn the lessons of 
history aright, and not merely to distort them for 
the gratification of his national pride, will do well 
to study the differences in comparative prowess shown 
in the single-ship fighting of the Americans, British 
and French, in 1780, 1798, and 1812 respectively. 
Readers of this history, on turning to the single-ship 
contests of the war of the American Revolution, will 
be struck by the fact that the British ships were 
then markedly superior to the American ; whereas 
the difference between the former and the French 
was very slight. In 1 7 9 8, the year in which America 
had a brush with France, a great change had taken 
place. At that time America had been forced to 
make reprisals at sea against the French, and three 
single-ship contests took place. American ships won 
twice against antagonists of inferior strength; and 
in a third case an American frigate fought a draw 
with a more powerful French frigate which, some 
time afterwards, was captured by a British frigate no 
stronger than her former American antagonist. 
Compared with their relative position in the preced- 
ing war, the French had fallen very far behindhand, 
and, while the British had kept their position of 

among persons well-informed on other subjects, and who, were a 
British seaman to be named with a Frenchman or Spaniard, would 
scoff at the comparison." (Stapleton's Correspondence of George 
Canning, ii. 450). See also Lane-Poole's ' Life of Stratford Can- 
ning,' i. 302, to show how completely both sides accepted the fact 
that there was to be no repetition of the grievances, in the way of 
impressment and search, which had caused the war. 



Great Britain and the United States 287 



primacy, the Americans, leaping forward, had 
passed the French, and were close behind the leaders. 
In 1812 the relative positions of the English and 
French remained unchanged ; but the Americans had 
forged still further ahead, and were better than the 
British. 

Of course, there had been no change of national 
character or aptitude for the sea during this period. 
The simple facts were that, in the war of the American 
Revolution, the American ships were manned by 
officers and crews who were without the trainino- of a 
regular service ; and so, while occasionally individual 
ships did exceedingly well, they often did very badly. 
The French navy, on the other hand, was at a high 
point of perfection, with excellent ships, and well- 
trained captains and crews. Throughout that war, 
in the single-ship fighting, victory normally lay with 
the heavier vessel, whether she was British, Dutch 
or French. In the war of the French Revolution all 
that had changed. The Revolution had destroyed 
the discipline of the French crews and annihilated 
the old school of officers ; while the enthusiasm with 
which it inspired the men could not at sea, as it did 
on land, in any way take the place of the lack of years 
of thorough training. On the other hand, the Ameri- 
cans had at last established a regular war navy, and 
their ships were officered by men carefully trained to 
their profession. During the next dozen years the 
French, constantly beaten by the British, were unable 
to develop an equality of prowess with the latter; 



288 Naval Operations of the War Between 

and the British accustomed to almost invariable 
victory over foes who were their inferiors alike in 
gunnery and seamanship, neglected their own 
gunnery, and sank into a condition of ignorant con- 
fidence that, even without preparation, they could 
" pull through somehow." The small American 
navy meanwhile was trained by years of sea-service, 
including much scrambling warfare with the Alge- 
rians ; and the American captains, fully aware of the 
formidable nature of the foe whom they were to meet, 
drilled their crews to as near perfection as might be. 
In such circumstances, they distinctly outmatched 
their average opponents, and could be encountered 
on equal terms only by men like Broke and 
Manners. 

The lesson from this is so obvious that it ought not 
to be necessary to point it out. There is unques- 
tionably a great difference in fighting capacity, as 
there is a great difference in intelligence, between 
certain races. But there are a number of races, each 
of which is intelligent, each of which has the fight- 
ing edge. Among these races, the victory in any 
contest will go to the man or the nation that has 
earned it by thorough preparation. This prep- 
aration was absolutely necessary in the days of 
sailing ships ; but the need for it is even greater 
now, if it be intended to get full benefit from 
the delicate and complicated mechanism of the for- 
midable war engines of the present day. The officers 
must spend many years, and the men not a few, in 



Great Britain and the United States 289 



unwearied and intelligent training, before they are 
fit to do all that is possible with themselves and 
their weapons. Those who do this, whether they 
be Americans or British, Frenchmen, Germans, or 
Russians, will win the victory over those who do 
not. 

Doubtless it helps if the sailormen — the sea me- 
chanics, as they are now — have the sea habit to 
start with ; and they must belong to the fighting 
stocks. But the great factor is the steady, intelli- 
gent training in the actual practice of their profes- 
sion. Any man who has had to do with bodies of 
men of varied race origin is forced to realise that 
neither courage nor cowardice is a purely national 
peculiarity. In an American warship of the present 
day, the crews are ordinarily of mixed race origin, 
somewhat over half being American born ; while 
among the remainder there are sure to be Scandi- 
navians, Germans, men from the British Isles, and 
probably others, such as French Canadians or Portu- 
guese. But the petty officers are sure to be drawn 
from all classes indiscriminately, simply because 
merit is not confined to any one class ; and, among 
the officers, those whose fathers came from Germany 
or Ireland will be found absolutely indistinguishable 
from their brethren of old native American origin. 
The Annapolis education and the after-training have 
stamped the officers, and the conditions of actual 
sea-service in modern ships under such officers have 
stamped the men, with a common likeness. The 

19 



290 



Naval Operations 



differences of skill, courage, application and readiness 
will not be found to coincide with the differences of 
race. 

What is true of the ships of one sea power is as 
true of the navies of all sea powers. No education 
will fit a coward, a fool, or a weakling for naval 
life. But, as a rule, the war fleets of great nations 
are neither commanded nor manned by cowards, fools, 
and weaklings ; and, among brave and intelligent 
men of different race-stocks, when the day of battle 
comes, the difference of race will be found to be as 
nothing when compared with differences in thorough 
and practical training in advance. 









